THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 


convenes the 


WORKING GROUP MEETING 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


Y-12
 

The verbatim transcript of the Working Group 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held telephonically on April 11, 2006. 

 

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C O N T E N T S
 

April 11, 2006 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 


DR. LEW WADE, DFO 


INTRODUCTION BY MARK GRIFFON 13 


SEC PETITION NUMBER 28 16 


RELIABILITY OF THE DATASET 32 


MATRIX DISCUSSION 94 


SAMPLE DOSE RECONSTRUCTIONS 126 


CONCLUSIONS 161 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 173 

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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


In the following transcript: a dash (--) indicates 


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


sentence. An ellipsis (. . .) indicates halting speech 


or an unfinished sentence in dialogue or omission(s) of 


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


-- "uh-huh" represents an affirmative response, and 


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


-- "*" denotes a spelling based on phonetics, 


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

 

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 P A R T I C I P A N T S 


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 


GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 

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PARTICIPANTS
 

ADLER, TIM, ORAU 


BEHLING, HANS, SC&A 


BRACKETT, LIZ, MJW 


CHEW, MEL, CHEW & ASSOC’S 


DUVALL, JAMES, PETITIONER 


ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH/OCAS 


FITZGERALD, JOSEPH, SC&A 


FIX, JACK, ORAU 


HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


KERR, GEORGE, KERR CONSULTING 


KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MCFEE, MATT, ORAU 


MCGOLERICK, ROBERT, HHS 


NETON, JIM, NIOSH 


PRESLEY, BOB, ABRWH 


REED, STEVE, ORAU 


RICH, BRYCE, ORAU 


RUTHERFORD, LAVON, NIOSH 


SMITH, MATTHEW, ORAU 


STEMPFLEY, DAN, ORAU 


SUNDIN, DAVE, NIOSH 


TANKERSLEY, BILL, ORAU 


THOMAS, ELYSE, ORAU 

 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(1:00 p.m.) 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO
 

DR. WADE: This is Lew Wade again, and I have 


the pleasure of serving as the Designated 


Federal Official for the Advisory Board. This 


is a working group of the Advisory Board, so 


far the hardest working of the working groups. 


This working group that’s chaired ably by Mark 


and populated by Mike, Wanda and Robert has 


taken on a variety of issues, among them 


individual dose reconstruction reviews, 


procedures reviews. They have recently been 


very involved in site profile reviews, 


particularly the reviews of the site profiles 


for Y-12 and Rocky Flats. 


This meeting, however, marks the first 


formal time this working group will be talking 


about the SEC petitions for today, Y-12, and 


tomorrow for Rocky Flats. The decision was 


made, and I think quite correctly, that this 


working group would continue with its pursuit 

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of the Rocky Flats and Y-12 issues that it 


ably began when it was doing the site profile 


reviews rather than ask Dr. Melius’ working 


group which is equally talented to pick up Y12 and Rocky from an SEC point of view. So 


that’s what we’re here to do today, Y-12, and 


tomorrow starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern time, 


Rocky Flats. 


I would like to have, spend some time 


on conflict of interest issues. Again that 


looms large now in our reality and with regard 


to the Board, the way the Board has developed 


its own rules for dealing with SEC petitions, 


if a Board member is conflicted at a 


particular site, then they back away from the 


table during SEC discussions. They can make 


comments as a member of the public. They can 


participate and listen to a meeting as a 


member of the public but not at the table as a 


Board member. Obviously, they wouldn’t be 


making motions or voting on motions in that 


case. 


Relative to Y-12, we have Board 


members who are conflicted. They are Dr. 


DeHart, Robert Presley, Dr. Ziemer, Mark 

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Griffon only when an action has been filed by 


the Atomic Trades and Labor Council. So for 


this call, although they’re not with us right 


now, DeHart, Presley and Ziemer would be 


conflicted. 


Before I go on and ask others to 


identify conflicts as it relates to Y-12, I 


would remind you that we don’t want to have a 


quorum present for a working group. That 


makes it a Board meeting and different rules 


prevail. So I would ask Board members when we 


go through the introductions to identify 


yourselves. And I noticed that Liz sent an e-


mail out if any Board members are to join us 


mid-discussion, they need to identify 


themselves so Liz and Emily and I can keep 


count of our numbers and deal with any quorum 


issues. 


Again, if we find ourselves at or over 


a quorum then we would have to respectfully 


ask the last person to join us to leave so 


long as that person wasn’t a member of the 


working group. We always want to have the 


working group members present. 


To finish my sort of long-winded 

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introduction, as you know the government is in 


receipt of a petition for Y-12, in fact, 


several, and NIOSH has recently released a 


petition evaluation report that I know you all 


have and have at varying degrees of review 


based upon the short time that you’ve had it. 


We’re looking at least a timeline now would be 


for NIOSH to formally present its 


recommendation at the Board meeting scheduled 


for the end of April in Denver, Colorado. And 


then the Board would begin its deliberations. 


So with that as a background and 


before I turn it over to Mark, let me ask that 


the NIOSH team, that would include folks from 


ORAU and then SC&A, identify anyone who’s on 


the line and will participate and particularly 


identify those people who have conflicts 


relative to Y-12. Again, if a person is 


conflicted, then as you know they would be 


conflicted in terms of serving as an author or 


a reviewer for key program documents. It 


wouldn’t preclude them from making a statement 


to add to the technical discussion on this 


call, but it’s important that those people are 


clearly identified. And when they make a 

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statement people hear their statement 


understanding the conflict that they possess. 


So, Jim, if I could ask you. I don’t 


know who will do it for NIOSH. Whoever’s 


going to start the discussion for NIOSH 


relative to conflict of interest for the 


entire NIOSH team including the ORAU folks. 


DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton sitting in, I 


have moved from the Marriott Hotel to 


Cincinnati, NIOSH buildings here. I’m sitting 


here and LaVon Rutherford is here with me from 


NIOSH. We’ve got some ORAU folks sitting 


around a table with me and others are on the 


phone. And honestly, I don’t know who they 


are, so I guess we’ll just let the ORAU folks 


who are around the table in Cincinnati 


identify themselves and if they have 


identified conflicts. And then the ORAU 


people on the phone would follow suit. 


MR. FIX: My name is Jack Fix. I’m with 


Dave Muller and Associates, and I don’t 


believe I’m conflicted with regards to Y-12. 


MS. THOMAS: I’m Elyse Thomas, and I’m with 


ORAU, and I’m not conflicted with Y-12. 


MS. BRACKETT: Liz Brackett with MJW, and I 

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am conflicted with Y-12. 


MR. McFEE: Matt McFee with MJW, and I’m not 


conflicted with Y-12. 


DR. NETON: And now for the ORAU folks that 


are on the phone. 


MR. SMITH: This is Matthew Smith, ORAU 


team, Dave Muller and Associates, not 


conflicted with Y-12. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Bill Tankersley, ORAU. 


DR. WADE: Any conflict? 


MR. TANKERSLEY: No. 


MR. KERR: George Kerr, no conflict. 


(UNINTELLIGIBLE): No conflict. 


MR. ADLER: Tim Adler, no conflict. 


MR. CHEW: Mel Chew with the ORAU team. I 


am not conflicted with the Y-12. 


MR. RICH: This is Bryce Rich. I’m not 


conflicted. 


MR. STEMPFLEY: This is Dan Stempfley with 


the ORAU team, and I’m not conflicted. 


DR. WADE: Does that finish the NIOSH/ORAU 


introductions? 


MR. ELLIOTT: Well, from NIOSH, Lew, this is 


Larry Elliott, and Jim Neton and I have signed 


off on approving this SEC evaluation report, 

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and from my perspective I’m not conflicted. 


Jim, you should speak about your 


situation. 


DR. NETON: I don’t believe that I’m 


conflicted at Y-12. 


DR. WADE: Anyone else from the technical 


team, NIOSH/ORAU? 


 (no response) 


DR. WADE: How about SC&A? 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro from SC&A. I 


am not conflicted, and I’d like to handle it 


the same way that Jim did and ask the 


participants on the phone from SC&A to each 


introduce themselves and make their statement. 


MR. FITZGERALD: This is Joe Fitzgerald. 


I’m not conflicted on Y-12. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun Makhijani. 


I’m not conflicted on Y-12. 


DR. BEHLING: Hans Behling, not conflicted. 


DR. WADE: Does anybody have any questions 


or comments they wish to make about the 


conflict of interest policies or situation? 


 (no response) 


DR. WADE: Okay, Mark, I’ll turn it over to 


you then. I think we could do broader 

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introductions, but I wanted to make sure we 


had the conflict of interest discussion. 


INTRODUCTION BY MARK GRIFFON
 

MR. GRIFFON: This is Mark Griffon, and I 


think we should do the same for the Board just 


to see who’s on from the Board. I assume the 


whole work group is, but this is Mark Griffon. 


Who else is on? 


MS. MUNN: Wanda Munn, no conflict. 


MR. GIBSON: Mike Gibson, no conflict. 


MR. GRIFFON: And Bob’s not on or --


DR. WADE: He might be joining. If he does, 


he’ll identify himself. 


MS. MUNN: He said he’d have to be on and 


off today because of what’s going on. 


DR. WADE: And Robert is conflicted, and I’m 


sure he’ll tell us that. 


Any other Board members on the call at 


the moment? 


 (no response) 


MS. MUNN: Lew, if you don’t mind, I’d like 


to interject that when I saw the message this 


morning from Liz, I immediately sent a message 


back saying it’s not clear to me with our 


present configuration exactly how many 

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additional members over the four members of a 


working group would be, would constitute a 


conflict (sic). And I had just gotten a 


message back from her saying three would. 


DR. WADE: Well, we were not over, we’re not 


in a quorum this morning. 


How about other federal employees 


identifying themselves? 


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Liz Homoki-Titus, Health 


and Human Services, and I don’t have any 


conflicts. 


MS. HOWELL: This is Emily Howell from 


Health and Human Services with Robert 


McGolerick from Health and Human Services, no 


conflicts. 


(UNINTELLIGIBLE): (Unintelligible) NIOSH, 


no conflicts. 


MR. KOTSCH: Jeff Kotsch, Department of 


Labor. 


DR. WADE: Any other feds? 


MR. SUNDIN: Dave Sundin, no conflicts. 


DR. WADE: This is Lew Wade again, no 


knowledge, therefore, no conflicts. 


MR. GRIFFON: And, Lew, I was just going to 


ask, any of the petitioners online for this 

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call? 


 (no response) 


MR. GRIFFON: Apparently not. 


DR. WADE: Is there anyone else who would 


like to identify themselves? It’s up to you 


totally. 


MR. DUVALL: Hello, James Duvall, Execution 


28. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Mr. Duvall is one of the 


petitioners for Y-12. 


DR. WADE: Welcome, and as our rules are, if 


you have anything to say through this process, 


please feel free to chime in. Petitioners are 


more than welcome to participate in the 


discussion. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think the best way to 


proceed here is if I think most of us now have 


the handouts or are getting the new documents. 


But I think maybe what makes more sense is to 


go through the evaluation report, have NIOSH 


present on that, and what I might do, Jim, 


while you present it or whoever’s going to 


present, I might keep track of the matrix that 


we were using for our previous discussions. 


And that any time if there’s any point of 

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clarification or whatever, I’d ask either the 


Board members or SC&A to step up and ask for 


clarifying points. Also, if there’s any 


outstanding actions which are related to 


certain areas, I might try to interject and 


see if those actions were completed, if 


they’re still pending, if they’re, you know, 


what the status is on those actions just to 


sort of complete that process as well. 


So with that I guess I’ll turn it over 


to Jim and whoever’s going to sort of walk us 


through this report. 


DR. NETON: Mark, I’m not quite sure, do you 


want me to give a summary of what we’ve done 


here or did you want me to bring in the 


relevant issues related to the matrix? 


Because I --


MR. GRIFFON: I think if you can start to go 


through a summary of what is in the report, I 


think it would be good, first of all. And 


then maybe if it makes sense to go through 


specific sections. And then I think the 


action items will sort of fall out as we 


discuss each section, if that makes sense. 


SEC PETITION NUMBER 28
 
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DR. NETON: Well, this is the petition 


evaluation report for SEC petition number 28 


which the petitioner original class definition 


was all steamfitters, pipe fitters and 


plumbers who worked at Y-12 from October 1944 


through December 1957. NIOSH, after having 


gone through and evaluated a number of sources 


of information which I’ll talk about shortly, 


modified the class to a proposed class 


definition of all employees of the DOE or DOE 


subcontractors who were monitored or should 


have been monitored for thorium exposures in 


some specific buildings. And those buildings 


are Building 9202, 9204-1, 9204-3, 9206 and 


9212. If one worked in those buildings and 


was monitored or should have been monitored 


for thorium for the 250-day work period from 


January ’48 through December ’57 that would be 


our proposed class. 


As typical with SEC evaluation 


reports, NIOSH started out by reviewing a 


number of data sources. The documentation 


literature available on Y-12 is fairly 


extensive as we discussed in past working 


group meetings. We do have a site profile 

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document. There are a number of Technical 


Information Bulletins reports out there. I 


think there are seven or more supplemental 


pieces of technical documentation that have 


been written about Y-12 in particular relative 


to the external and internal monitoring 


programs. Those were cited in the report in 


review. 


A number of interviews were conducted 


with employees and site experts including 


health physicists and workers for several 


purposes. Some were conducted to determine 


the robustness of the monitoring program, and 


there was a supplemental interview conducted 


to determine the nature of weapons-related 


work in a specific timeframe. 


We also looked at previous dose 


reconstructions in a site research database, 


and in particular a large part of our 


evaluation centered on the Center for 


Epidemiologic Research database where we did 


some quality control evaluations as well as 


some data integrity and reliability reviews. 


Also looked at the Y-12 Delta view 


system that those who are on the working group 

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are aware was discovered fairly recently that 


a, it’s not an electronic database in the 


strictest sense of the word. It’s really an 


image database that has, I think, over 400,000 


individual images within its system. And of 


course, we looked at the documentation 


affidavits provided by the petitioners. 


Just to briefly go over some of the 


radiologic operations, Y-12, of course, is 


primarily, primary hazard of exposure at Y-12 


is uranium. There were large amounts of 


uranium processed, and in particular enriched 


uranium at Y-12 over the history of the plant. 


But in addition, where there are what I’ll 


call ancillary sources of exposures to much 


smaller source terms but nonetheless 


significant. Those would include exposures to 


thorium, plutonium, some neptunium, tritium 


and a few other radionuclides as well as 


exposures that may have occurred at the 


cyclotron operation, in ’86, the cyclotron 


that made what we’ve come to call exotic 


radionuclides for the most part. 


We reviewed all the exposure 


potentials at those sites that related to the 

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individual types of exposures, whether they be 


alpha, beta, gamma or neutron exposures or x-


ray generating equipment. And also looked at 


the extent of the handling of recycled uranium 


at the Y-12 facility. 


So looking at all the available 


monitoring data, we feel that for uranium 


exposures at Y-12, we have sufficient 


information to reconstruct internal and 


external exposures for those who were exposed 


to uranium at Y-12 between the, in the class 


period as well as we can reconstruct exposures 


that occurred at the cyclotron and some of the 


Calutron operations that handled plutonium. 


Where we believe there is a deficiency 


in the data to reconstruct doses is in the 


area of thorium exposures. We have come to 


learn that thorium was in existence at the Y12 site from the beginning of this class 


period through the end of the class period and 


was used for several different purposes during 


that timeframe. We have no internal 


monitoring data for fecal or urine samples 


that we can find. I think there were samples 


that were taken, but we just don’t have them 

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in our possession in the SEC period. And we 


have just come across very recently some air 


monitoring data related to the Calutron 


operations, but we have had insufficient time 


to review those data and are not prepared to 


use those in dose reconstruction. So we are 


not considering them a viable source for this 


SEC class. 


So at the end of the day we’re 


recommending that anyone who had worked with 


thorium operations or should have been, were 


monitored or should have been monitored for 


thorium activities at the facility in the 


buildings I’ve mentioned at the beginning of 


my discussion would be covered as part of the 


SEC. But we feel that we have adequate 


information to address the other sources of 


exposures that I’ve discussed. 


It’s a pretty thumbnail sketch of a 


140-page document which I’m sure we can go 


into a lot more detail, but I’ve hit the 


highlights. 


MR. GRIFFON: I’m just wondering the best 


way to proceed here. I mean, we could either 


go through the matrix or we could, I’m looking 

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at section six where you discussed available 


monitoring data. I mean, the operations stuff 


we can probably read at our own opportunity. 


But it might be useful if you could maybe, you 


touched on some of this, but maybe go through 


the available monitoring data a little more 


closely. 


DR. NETON: What page does section six start 


on? 


MR. GRIFFON: Twenty-three on my printout 


anyway. 


DR. NETON: For the internal monitoring data 


let me start with the uranium data and the 


data relevant to uranium and the external 


monitoring data that we have. There’s Table 


6.2 on page 27 that summarizes that. And as 


we’ve discussed in the past -- I’m sorry, it’s 


on page 26. Back in the early years, 1948 and 


’49 we have no internal, no uranium bioassay 


data that we could find for the class. But we 


have data starting in 1951, and as you see, 


the number of samples ramps up from about 


1,000 in 1950 terminating at the end of the 


class or 1957 with 33,000 samples. So there’s 


a large amount of uranium monitoring data 

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available. 


There is a Technical Information 


Bulletin that we have that has taken these 


monitoring records and converted them into a 


coworker model where we’ve developed 


individual exposures by year with geometric 


standard deviations that we apply to those who 


were not monitored. As you can see there were 


a small percentage of the overall workers 


monitored the earlier years, but through 


discussions and other information that we’ve 


come to learn -- and this is contained in the 


evaluation report -- we believe that it was 


ORAU’s policy consistently throughout the SEC 


period to monitor those workers with the 


highest potential for exposure. 


What did I say? 


MR. GRIFFON: ORAU’s policy. 


DR. NETON: Y-12, sorry. 


MS. MUNN: Jim, may I interrupt you long 


enough to ask whoever has a small child in 


their hearing area, would they please mute 


their phone? It sounds like a really sweet 


kid, but it’s hard to hear the numbers over 


it. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Thank you. I think they did 


it. 


DR. NETON: And like the lack of data in ’48 


and ’49 we’ve accounted for by back 


extrapolating into that period using the data 


in ’50 forward, and we believe that it’s 


fairly representative based on an analysis of 


the types of operations that were ongoing in 


’48 and ’49 versus the later years. That is, 


there weren’t much uranium activities ongoing 


in ’48 and ’49. That was after the Calutron 


had been shut down. 


One can look at Table 6.2 and the 


external monitoring records and there’s a 


similar picture, that is, well, we start off 


in ’48 with a fair number of records, 


diminished in the early ‘50s and then 


increased later on. But again we feel in this 


particular case as we discussed we have gone 


from 1961 backwards into, we have an 


extrapolation mode to predict the external 


badge results in the pre-’60 period based on 


the Technical Information Bulletin that we’ve 


discussed at several of our working group 


meetings. 

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And George Kerr is on the phone, and 


I’m sure we can discuss more about that later 


if we’d like to get into that. So for the 


uranium operations we feel that these data 


allow us to have a pretty good handle on 


uranium exposures. 


If one looks on page 24 and Table 6-1 


though I did mention early on that we have 


exposures to non-uranium isotopes, and in 


particular, there were plutonium exposures 


related to the, I think starting in about the 


1952 timeframe, the Calutrons were used to 


enrich plutonium. But we do have from the 


Delta view system about 740 plutonium samples 


that were collected during the active period 


of operation of plutonium enrichment. We 


believe that we can use these samples to bound 


plutonium exposures for the workers on the 


Calutron operations. 


Now it may appear that that’s a small 


number of samples, but we believe relative to 


the number of people actually working this 


process that it’s a fairly good sampling of 


the workers particularly in light of the fact 


that we feel fairly confident it’s 

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consistently been portrayed that the Y-12 


facility monitored workers who were 


preferentially monitored workers who had the 


highest potential for exposure. 


As you see in this table there are 


zero thorium results available between 1952 


and ’57; however, starting in ’58 you’ll see 


that there are some thorium samples. I 


believe those are thorium fecal samples that 


were started to be collected in those time 


periods as the facility ramped up to do large-


scale processing of thorium starting in the 


1960s. We believe this is one of the reasons 


that the cut point is at ’57. We believe 


these thorium samples can help us bound 


thorium exposures in that timeframe. 


The CEDR data we have, and that’s 


where all of the urine data came from, and 


I’ll talk a little bit later about what we’ve 


done to, or we can get into that later, what 


we’ve done to -- not the CEDR data, the CER 


data -- what we’ve done to evaluate the 


quality and the pedigree of that information. 


One important source of information 


that we have are the health physics progress 

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reports that were consistently written and 


available starting in the early days of 


operation at the facility. And they have some 


really good descriptions of normal operations 


as well as off-normal operations including 


incident exposures. In fact, we believe that 


this source is an excellent source of 


information related to reconstructing 


radionuclides that were produced at the 


cyclotron operations. 


The cyclotron itself was when the 


targets were primarily, they were clad and the 


potential for internal exposure was fairly 


minimal unless there was a rupture of the 


target itself due to an excessive amperage or 


something like that or a proton exposure on 


the target. So those are documented very 


well, at least the ones that I’ve looked at 


and our team has looked at, so that we believe 


that these incidents, when they occurred, 


these were not episodic events, they weren’t 


routine exposures and that we can use those to 


help bracket the potential exposures in the 


cyclotron operations. 


As well as incident reports are 

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available and we checked in some claimant 


files that we backtrack and we do have 


incident reports available. One can look in 


the health physics report and see the incident 


and then find that you have incident records 


in the claimant’s file. So we feel 


comfortable with the fact that we can 


reconstruct the exposures to these short-lived 


radionuclides at the cyclotrons. 


As far as, let’s see, I think I’ve 


covered plutonium, uranium --


MR. GRIFFON: Jim, just to interrupt for a 


second. Are those HP reports on the O drive? 


DR. NETON: Yes, they are. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, those are the same ones 


that have been, okay. 


DR. NETON: There are some that are not 


there that are available but they are still 


classified. That’s why they aren’t available, 


the information has not necessarily been 


declassified. But the early time period 


through 1953, I believe, are there, and we 


have one from ’56. But we do believe we have 


access to all the health physics progress 


reports. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Because I think the ones I’ve 


looked at don’t discuss as much of the 


cyclotron operations, at least I don’t recall, 


but anyway, they’re on the O drive except if 


they’re still going through declassification. 


DR. NETON: Yes, so that covers that. 


The thorium I talked about. Oh, there 


was a neptunium potential for exposure to 


neptunium. By the way, a lot of this 


information was really good. You know, we had 


these great working group discussions and SC&A 


was very helpful in bringing these all out to 


the fore. 


The neptunium was a result of, the 


only neptunium exposure potential that I’m 


aware of was a result of the desire to extract 


neptunium out of the recycled uranium feed 


stream to be used as a target to make, I 


think, Plutonium-238. That was performed on a 


special column basis made by the X-10 


facility, and the material was brought 


through, deposited on a column -- it was a wet 


process, taken off, and then sent over to X-10 


for processing. So we don’t believe that 


there is a credible exposure scenario, 

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internal exposure scenario, from that 


operation to the Y-12 facility people. 


I think I’ve covered most of that. 


Let me talk a little bit about external. I’ve 


mentioned that we have the external badges. 


We have a fair number of them after ’61 that 


we developed a scaling procedure to go back 


prior to ’61 to fill in unmonitored workers’ 


doses. The neutron exposures at this facility 


we believe, and it’s documented fairly well, 


to be low. 


There is a Report 33 that was written 


by ORAU for NIOSH that documents that between 


1952 and ’63 there were only 375 positive 


quarterly neutron readings for 143 individual 


workers. And in fact, the exposures on these 


positive badges during this entire time period 


was fairly low. I think the 95th percentile of 


all the positive neutron badged results in 


that time period is 336 millirem. 


There are almost, the only credible 


exposure to non-monitored, for unmonitored 


uranium exposure, unmonitored neutron 


exposures may be in the storage area where 


enriched uranium was stored. There certainly 

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was potential for neutron exposures at the 


cyclotrons and the calibration laboratory, and 


I think that was the two other locations. 


There might be one more. But in those 


facilities it’s pretty well established that 


neutron monitoring did, it was worn. 


Starting in ’49, neutron-sensitive 


film was added and exchanged. And workers 


were assigned these neutron-sensitive films 


from ’50 to ’61, but they were not always 


read. If you worked in an area where there 


was a potential for neutron, the badge was 


read. If you did not work in an area where 


there was potential for exposure, the badge 


was not read, and in fact, zeros could have 


been entered into the record. 


So it does create a little bit of a 


confusing picture, but again, the neutron 


exposures at Y-12 are few and far between. 


And the documented evidence that we have from 


the 147 workers that have positives in the 


ten-year period is the 95th percentile, 330­

something millirem. 


I think that kind of sums up where 


we’re at with the exposure scenarios. If 

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you’d like, I can talk a little bit about what 


was done for the reliability of the dataset. 


RELIABILITY OF THE DATASET
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think that would be, 


yeah, that would make sense and that would go 


right into the first section of the matrix, 


too. 


DR. NETON: You can probably tell I wasn’t 


prepared to do this ad lib. I’m muddling 


through it I think okay. 


There’s an Appendix 1 of the document 


that’s what’s called Monitoring Data 


Sufficiency, and it goes through and lists the 


available information we have and how we 


believe it assists us in doing dose 


reconstructions. The first thing that’s 


discussed are the Y-12 progress reports, and I 


won’t go over that again. I went over that in 


some detail just a bit ago. 


We also looked at employee interviews, 


and those were done to help support the 


contention that based on available 


documentation, that is, procedures and 


policies, that the highest exposed workers 


were monitored. The health physics staff 

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supported that contention through interviews. 


And in fact, one of the Technical Bulletins 


that have been written has gone through and 


demonstrated that based on an analysis of the 


data, which is included. 


As far as the credibility and 


representativeness of the data a few things 


were attempted. None of these are exhaustive. 


There are certain time constraints on us, and 


the availability of the data was not as great 


as we would have liked. But we looked at, 


ORAU and NIOSH looked at a number of different 


pieces of information to help confirm that the 


Center for Epidemiologic Research database was 


indeed, did indeed capture the exposure 


information for the workers, you know, 


properly capture it. 


What we’ve done is gone back and 


looked at the individual external monitoring 


results that were on data view, the Delta view 


document image, compared their results to the 


ones that are on the Y-12 records, electronic 


records, the CER records. We looked at the 


health physics progress reports, comparing the 


numbers of data records present to those in 

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the electronic record. We actually found in 


the progress reports monitoring results for 21 


specific people, and we compared those. And 


then there were also these punch cards that 


were found, about 40 of them, and they were 


also compared to the electronic record. 


Speaking of the urinalysis results, 


first, the 22 individuals found in a 1952, I 


think it was, progress report, somewhere in 


that timeframe -- yeah, I think it was ’52, 


’53. The result matched up virtually 


identically. There were no differences in the 


results with the exception of one worker who 


his official record had an additional sample 


that was left out of the average, apparently 


left out of the average that was included in 


the health physics reports. And that value 


appeared to be an outlier that was retained in 


the electronic database which made some sense 


to us. Rather than censoring the database, 


you know, it was left in there. 


I think the situation was that there 


were three results reported -- I can’t 


remember the exact results. It was like 157, 


152 and a second sample taken on the same day 

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had a value of 2. Clearly, there’s something 


wrong with one of those values, and that value 


was not reported in the health physics report. 


But other than that the data matched 


identically. 


MS. MUNN: That’s reassuring. 


DR. NETON: Also, the health physics reports 


did not have a lot of individual data that we 


could compare. I think those 22 were the only 


ones we could find at a time available. But 


they did have a lot of data related to the 


range of values, the 50th percentile for the 


period, 75th, 95th percentile, those types of 


sort of generic statistics. 


We’ve gone back and looked at those, 


pulling the data off of the health physics 


graphs, the report graphs, and comparing them 


to what’s, you know, looking at the actual 


data in the electronic database, there’s a 


table that we put in here, Table 3-2 that 


shows that there is fairly, pretty good 


agreement, broad agreement among the ranges 


reported in the health physics reports and 


what’s in the Y-12 electronic database. There 


are some discrepancies, but again, we’re 

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pulling these things off of graphs and, we 


didn’t expect them to be perfectly in 


agreement. 


MR. GRIFFON: Jim, this was done for one 


health physics report or did you do multiple 


ones and just include one --


DR. NETON: I think this was one health 


physics report I believe which is number 1952 


health physics report. Another test that was 


done, we looked through the database and where 


there was a maximum value reported in a 


specific year, in a 1952 progress report, the 


maximum value reported is 795 dpm for 24 


hours. And in fact, that was the maximum 


value in the electronic database in that time 


period. So there was fairly, we would say, 


good agreement, not perfect agreement, but 


good agreement between the health physics 


reports and the Y-12 database. 


One area where there was a larger 


discrepancy, and we talked about this in 


previous working group meetings, was in the 


comparison of the actual number of samples 


reported by monitoring period. Typically, the 


progress reports identified more samples than 

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were in the database. But interviews were 


conducted with laboratory workers who we 


believe were knowledgeable about operations in 


those time periods, and it seemed that the 


health physics reports included more than just 


the individual results for a worker. 


In other words, there were quality 


control samples, other samples that may have 


been taken. There’s some questions of whether 


a sample was measured both for uranium, alpha 


activity as well as fluorometrically. Those 


kinds of issues were raised which tend to 


support the findings. You know, there would 


be more samples in the health physics reports 


than in the database. 


The punch card comparison, after 


extensive searching we finally found, when I 


say we I use it in the general sense. I was 


not involved in this but ORAU certainly did a 


lot of this work. We learned early on that 


the data, we couldn’t find any laboratory 


notebooks, but we learned early on that punch 


cards were used where actual people would 


write the data, the analyst would write the 


data on the pre-punched card, which would be 

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fed into the electronic database. 


And after some significant searching 


we identified a set of cards that were not in 


the SEC period but were from a later period. 


I believe it was somewhere in the ‘70s. I 


can’t recall exactly. And we pulled 36 of 


those cards that had the numbers written on 


them and compared them to the records in the 


electronic database. There was very good 


agreement with the database with the punch 


cards as far as the samples having been taken 


and those types of issues. 


Unfortunately, the punch cards did not 


have a final result. I think that was the 


result, that was the reason the computer cards 


were used. They would actually fold in the 


appropriate background and calibration factors 


and come up with a result. By applying what 


we felt to be fairly reasonable values for 


those factors, we were able to demonstrate 


that the data from the punch cards was 


consistent with what was in the electronic 


database, at least in this 1970’s timeframe. 


We do believe that this was, the punch 


cards go back fairly far, maybe as late, early 

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as the late ‘40s but certainly into the early 


‘50s. 


MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. Did I hear you 


say --


DR. NETON: I’m sorry, Wanda, we’re having 


trouble hearing you. 


MS. MUNN: I’m sorry. I’ll try to get my 


microphone a little closer to my mouth. Is 


this better? 


DR. NETON: Yeah, a little better. 


MS. MUNN: Did I understand you to say that 


the cards were pre-punched and then the data 


was written onto them? 


DR. NETON: No, I think the data was written 


on them and then they were punched and read 


into the computer. 


MS. MUNN: Okay, that’s what I would have 


expected. 


DR. NETON: In other words instead of 


keeping a laboratory list or something, you 


would write the analytical results in the box 


on top of the card and then a keypunch 


operator would go enter the data. 


MR. GRIFFON: Jim, I get the impression that 


only some of them had handwritten values on 

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them, not --


DR. NETON: That’s true. 


MR. GRIFFON: -- most of the cards. 


DR. NETON: That is true. 


MR. GRIFFON: And did, this is sort of 


getting into our action list, but was there 


any follow up on the other cards that the idea 


of comparing the punched values to the 


database --


DR. NETON: No. 


MR. GRIFFON: -- in the time period in 


question. 


DR. NETON: I don’t want to speak for ORAU. 


I’ll ask if ORAU has anyone on there that 


could comment on that. I don’t recall, I 


don’t think we’ve done that. 


MR. GRIFFON: I could catch that in the 


matrix, too, when we go through, but I just 


was curious, not to interrupt. 


DR. NETON: Bill Tankersley, are you on the 


phone? Was that done at all do you know? 


MR. TANKERSLEY: I began to attempt to read 


the cards, and they certainly could be read, 


but I think typically for reading the cards 


was located in another place and, no, I have 

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not followed up on that. I’m sure that the 


values can be read. 


DR. NETON: Thanks, Bill. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Excuse me one more moment, 


and by the way, Mark, now, I don’t think it’s 


exactly accurate to say that only a few of the 


cards, all of the cards in that period of time 


had --


DR. NETON: Bill, could you get a little 


closer? We’re having trouble hearing you. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: It’s not really accurate to 


say that only a few of the cards had 


handwritten data on them. All of the cards in 


that period of time had the data written on 


them. They were pre-punched with the person’s 


name and department number and so forth, and 


then they wrote the data on them (telephonic 


interruption) in another period that did not 


have the handwritten data on it. I don’t 


understand that because it was an earlier 


period, but all of the cards during that ‘70s, 


I’ve forgotten exactly the years that we 


looked at, but all of them had data written on 


them. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, I didn’t mean to 

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misrepresent that. So it was during that time 


period most of them had or all of them had 


handwritten data. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Yes, they would all, Mel 


and them only got, I think, 50 or so of those, 


and then 14 of those were outside of the 


period that we looked at the database. That’s 


the reason why there were 36 of them. They 


were all obviously there. 


MR. GRIFFON: But during the petition time 


frame, or I don’t know if you found any cards 


for the petition time frame? 


MR. TANKERSLEY: No, we have not been able 


to find any prior to, I think, ’65. 


MR. GRIFFON: Someone’s got another 


conversation going on, I think. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, we have another woman 


carrying on a conversation with somebody. 


MR. GRIFFON: Keep it down or move into 


another room or something. 


MS. MUNN: This is Wanda as just kind of a 


side comment. I wouldn’t even have been 


surprised to see one set, some of the data 


recorded in pencil and some not having been 


one of the individuals who was often involved 

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in keypunch operations myself. 


And that other conversation is still 


going on. 


DR. WADE: This woman who’s having a 


conversation that we can hear, please mute it 


or end the conversation or in some way spare 


the rest of us from listening to it. 


MS. MUNN: The proficiency of the keypunch 


operator often had a great deal to do with 


what information was recorded or not. That 


may have no bearing on what we’re talking 


about, but it was a reality of that time 


period. 


DR. WADE: Nobody else talk. Let me just 


hear a word and get her attention. Well, 


maybe it’s gone away. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think, Jim, we’ll turn it 


back to you. 


DR. NETON: In the external dosimetry area, 


ORAU could actually look, looking through 


about a 1,000 Delta view images was able to 


find a list of 28 individual employees who had 


at least one positive weekly result in their 


record so that we could use that to compare to 


what’s in the electronic database. Because as 

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you remember, some of the, much of the ORAU 


data in the early years is summary data now. 


We’ve lost the individual, you know, we’ve not 


lost, individual readings have not been 


preserved in the electronic database. 


So there was a period of 1953 where 


the weekly Delta view results were compared to 


the Y-12 electronic database, and I think we 


talked about this in the past, that’s included 


in Table 3-3 on page 15 of supplement of 


Appendix 1. And there was in general 


agreement, but there were differences. But 


the differences were not to be unexpected 


because of what was going on with censoring of 


data as far as detection limits and those type 


of issues. But again, we believe that they’re 


fairly consistent and predictive, that the 


database at least captures these people and 


has their doses of record represented 


properly. 


One thing that’s not in here that I 


just learned yesterday, and at the risk of 


doing one of these throwing things on the 


table at the eleventh hour, we have been 


looking and looking for the, a document that 

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indicated that the DOE, the Department of 


Energy had accepted the electronic database as 


the data of record for Y-12. Well, we haven’t 


found that exact document, but we did identify 


a document written by Hap West, who was a Y-12 


employee, that discusses the fact that the DOE 


has accepted this database as the doses of 


record for the workers. So it’s one step 


closer to that, but it’s not the Holy Grail so 


to speak, which would be a DOE memo stating 


that. But it does support what we’ve been, 


what we believe has been the case for this 


database. 


DR. BEHLING: Jim, this is Hans Behling. I 


need to ask a question that refers to Table 6­

2 in your evaluation report. At the bottom --


DR. NETON: What page is that on, Hans? 


DR. BEHLING: It’s on page 26 and 27. And 


let me just go to maybe 1954 as an example 


that’s on page 27 at least on my printout. 


And the question I have is what constitutes a 


record? You have a footnote A and then 


there’s a statement below that says fix on the 


monitored records, include all currently known 


available gamma, beta and neutron data. Does 

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a record refer to a single monitored 


individual? 


DR. NETON: No, I believe that that refers 


to in the urinalysis section a number of 


bioassay samples. 


DR. BEHLING: Well, there’s also for 


external radiation which I assume involves the 


assignment of dosimeters. 


DR. NETON: Right, now external is a little 


different issue because as I mentioned, and 


someone from the ORAU side correct me if I’m 


wrong here, but we do not have in many cases 


the individual readings in the electronic 


database. They have been consolidated into 


quarterly results so we would not necessarily 


have the bi-weekly reads that went in to make 


that quarterly result. 


DR. BEHLING: Well, I guess the question I 


have if I’m looking at 1954, you have here a 


total of 1240 records representing 682 


monitored individuals. And I guess if I were 


to believe, for instance, under one condition 


the definition of a record is one individual 


dosimeter assigned to one individual person, 


that would constitutes only two records for 

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the 680, for each of the 682 individuals 


monitored. And that’s a period of time when 


people were monitored on a weekly basis or 


cycles were weekly. Which means that in 


theory if I was looking at perhaps a complete 


record for those 682 individuals, I would 


expect somewhere close to over 35,000 records 


to make it a complete record. And right now 


I’m looking at this and saying is this really 


a representation where only two records on 


average for each individual was available for 


reconstructing these doses? 


MR. TANKERSLEY: (Inaudible) the year and 


the quarter of monitoring. They summarized 


those numbers and those are the official 


recognized by DOE results. And of course, the 


CER database is simply a copy thereof, and so 


what as, the gentleman was, the example that 


he was referring to, that would indicate that 


those 600 and some-odd people, they would have 


two quarterly records for each one and which 


again is perfectly possible. 


Some people would have all four 


quarters; some people would have one quarter; 


some people could have two quarters. So the 

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data and a record is a quarterly external 


monitoring number even though that number 


originally may have come from multiple weeks. 


And that’s all been explained and documented 


perfectly in the health physics reports. 


DR. BEHLING: And the reason I say because 


I’m looking at another TBD. I’ll tell you 


which one. It’s Paducah, and I’m looking at 


the health physics reports there. And what 


I’ve come to conclude is really that people 


were being badged on a rotational basis. And 


I think this brings us back to the issue of 


the question that has been raised previously 


where we, or at least I had mentioned perhaps 


the concept of cohort badging. 


And now I’m beginning to believe that 


I’m looking at something very differently. In 


other words, a person among the 682 people may 


have been monitored during that year but not 


on a weekly basis. In other words, if you 


were person number one among the 682, you may 


have only been monitored out of the 52 weeks 


that you may have been employed there only a 


fraction of the number of weeks in total 


meaning that you really have incomplete 

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records on individuals. 


And therefore, you may have a very 


different understanding of what the average 


doses were at least that’s been my tentative 


conclusion regarding Paducah gaseous diffusion 


plant which also badge people up until 1960 on 


a sampling basis, and thereafter again all 


workers were monitored. So there’s a real 


parallel here, and I’m wondering if I’m 


looking at the same thing here to Y-12. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: I can’t speak to the 


records at Paducah, at least not right now, 


but there’s no evidence whatsoever, neither 


written nor in the records, to indicate there 


was any kind of random monitoring, and that’s 


what you’re suggesting. 


DR. BEHLING: Yeah, for Paducah there’s no 


question because I’ve looked at the health 


physics reports and then, for instance, I’ll 


give you the numbers for 1953. Supposedly 223 


people were monitored, and the assumption is 


that they were monitored for each and every 


week. As it turns out I’m looking at the 


health physics records similar to the ones 


that you’re referring to here. And it turns 

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out that for some weeks there were only 32 


badges issued meaning that clearly that the 


people were not monitored for each and every 


consecutive week throughout the whole year. 


And it’s likely that they were monitored on a 


rotational basis, which completely changes the 


whole landscape for the dosimetry data that 


has been assembled in behalf of Paducah. And 


it’s possible that the same thing happened 


here. 


MR. KERR: Isn’t the topic of Y-12? 


DR. NETON: Yeah, Hans, I hear what you’re 


saying, and I don’t know that it’s relevant to 


Y-12. Like Bill spoke, we have no indication 


that this was the case, and in fact, I would 


not be surprised if there were certain 


campaigns going on in the facility where 


(unintelligible) were being shipped or some 


operation was being processed where workers 


would be badged in some periods and not 


others. That would speak as well to the, you 


know, monitoring the highest exposed 


individuals. 


DR. BEHLING: Yeah, as I said, I just see a 


tremendous parallel here between the time 

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periods during which part of the workers were 


monitored and then thereafter. And whether 


it’s for Ames, I mean not for Ames, for Iowa 


Army Ammunition Plant, Y-12, Paducah, the 


transition between a partial worker monitoring 


program to all worker monitoring program all 


came in 1960 and ’61. And so there must have 


been some kind of a AEC policy shift that says 


we must monitor everyone. And so there does 


seem to be a parallel between different 


facilities even though they were run by 


different contractors. 


DR. NETON: All I can say is maybe you have 


not been on previous working group calls, but 


we’ve gone to some lengths to support this 


conclusion. I mean, we didn’t make this up. 


We heard this originally from interviewing the 


health physics staff who indicated that this 


was the case that the highest exposed workers 


were monitored. We found documentation to 


support that, and in addition, an analysis was 


done with when all workers were monitored 


versus some workers were monitored. And the 


highest exposed workers continued to be the 


highest exposed workers. It wasn’t like it 

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shifted. So there’s a three-pronged analysis 


that we’ve done that we believe supports 


fairly well that conclusion. 


DR. BEHLING: Yeah, I don’t doubt that 


highest potentially exposed people were 


monitored, but I still believe based on the 


information I’ve seen for Paducah and possibly 


here, too, that people were, in fact, still 


monitored on a rotational basis meaning that 


the same worker wasn’t always monitored 


throughout the year. 


And that would be consistent with the 


concept of cohort badging meaning that we want 


to be sure that no one exceeds the regulatory 


limit of 300 millirem in any given week or the 


quarterly or the yearly limit. And the way to 


do it is to basically monitor on a rotational 


basis all workers at least for a fraction of 


the year. 


MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. I just 


want to make a statement for the record here. 


As an ex-DOE worker, I can state unequivocally 


-- I don’t know about Y-12 -- but I do know at 


Mound that the potentially highest exposed 


worker was not the one that was monitored in 

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all cases. It was the one that volunteered to 


wear the dosimeter if they was going to have a 


limited number of people that were badged or 


monitored or whatever. So I can’t speak for 


Y-12. I have no knowledge of it, but I can 


tell you you can’t state unilaterally that 


that was the case complex-wide. 


DR. BEHLING: Maybe this is an issue that 


needs to be resolved on another level other 


than a conference call, but I will be writing 


a draft report in behalf of our review of the 


Paducah TBD. And I will provide some 


information that supports my contention. Now 


whether or not this particular issue applies 


to Y-12 is something that we’ll have to look 


at. 


MR. GRIFFON: And I think as it pertains to 


Y-12, or if it pertains to Y-12, we, the work 


group or the Board has asked SC&A to review 


this evaluation report. And if you consider 


all of the supplemental materials that have 


been produced through the work group process 


by, as Jim mentioned, they’ll come to a 


similar conclusion, then we’d appreciate 


seeing their analysis and your review. I 

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think that’s the place to expand on it. 


DR. BEHLING: Yeah, at this point I really 


just wanted clarification on a definition of 


what constitutes a record. 


MR. KERR: Excuse me; this is George Kerr. 


We have some memos from Y-12 about who was 


being monitored and for what periods. 


Rotational monitoring was not used at Y-12. I 


can clearly state that. I can clearly state 


the highest exposed workers were being 


monitored. They did have what was called a 


supplemental badge program where they would 


badge workers for a quarter or two quarters to 


make sure that they weren’t missing any highly 


exposed workers. 


If those workers showed that the head 


load exposure sometimes in the supplemental 


badge program, then they didn’t monitor them. 


They switched over; they monitored some other 


workers. But there was no set rotational 


badge monitoring at Y-12. 


MR. GRIFFON: George, are these memos part 


of the materials we have? 


MR. KERR: Yes, sir. 


MR. GRIFFON: They’re all out there for our 

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review. 


MR. KERR: They’re on the O drive. 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. I have a, 


just a point of clarification so I can 


understand. Going back to the Table 6-2 that 


Hans is describing, and we’ll use the 1954 


data. I just want to make sure I understand 


now. What we have here is, you have 1,240 


records and 682 individuals monitored. The 


implication being on average, and each of 


these records represents one quarter as 


opposed to one week, that means on average any 


one individual may have been monitored where 


you have real data for him now for two 


quarters. And the other two quarters on 


average again the individual would have no 


monitored record. 


When you reconstruct that individual’s 


exposures for the time periods or the quarters 


where you have no records, is that when you 


would apply your extrapolation technique or 


would you assume a zero reading for that 


quarter or one-half the MDL? 


MR. TANKERSLEY: I’m sorry, John, this is 


Bill Tankersley again. I think one thing that 

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you would need to keep in mind is that while I 


can’t argue with the averages that you 


calculated there, 1200 is very close to twice 


what 600 is, but that’s not really the picture 


that one sees. One sees that typically a 


group of people have four quarters of 


monitoring because they are the regular 


workers, the workers in one of the areas that 


have a high potential for exposure. And then 


there’ll be another set of people that will 


have, you know, will be monitored for one 


quarter or two quarters and so forth as the 


need arises for these short-term, some of the 


projects were very short termed, and they 


would need to wear a badge for those periods. 


DR. MAURO: And for an individual worker 


that situation would be apparent so in that 


circumstance for the quarter that that person 


was monitored, of course, you have his record. 


And for those quarters that that person was 


not monitored you would deal with that on a 


case-by-case basis based on that individual’s 


work history. I just want to understand how 


you fill in the missing data for that 


individual whether you assume it’s zero or you 

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use your extrapolation technique. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: I cannot answer that. The 


dose reconstruction people, maybe Jim can 


address that. 


 (no response) 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Since they are not, our 


contention is that a person that is not 


monitored for a quarter or a longer period --


DR. NETON: I’m sorry, Bill, it certainly 


wouldn’t be zero, and I’m at a loss. I don’t 


have the procedures in front of me, but I 


assume that we would either impute the value 


based on the back extrapolation or --


MR. SMITH: Jim, this is Matt Smith in 


Richland. And you’re absolutely correct. We 


would follow Implementation Guide 001 which we 


do not have dosimetry data bound the hierarchy 


which includes coworker data which is the data 


that George Kerr and Company has put together 


in OTIB-0013 and also in Procedure 42. 


DR. BEHLING: And this is Hans Behling 


again. I guess the bottom line of my line 


questioning really centers around the table 


that’s identified in TIB-0013 that says how 


did these numbers come to be in light of the 

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fact that you may have people who were 


monitored but not for all cycles of the year. 


How did these numbers that are found in TIB0013 that now constitute the basis for cohort 


dose assignment, how were those numbers 


derived? And that’s really the bottom line of 


my question. 


MR. SMITH: Well, again I’ll turn you toward 


George Kerr, but they wrote up, recorded the 


report 32. Is that correct, George? 


MR. KERR: Yes, and we handed out something 


at the last meeting in Cincinnati that was a 


progress report that very clearly tells you 


how we got those numbers in the beta and gamma 


regression analysis. It’s very clear in there 


what we did. 


MR. SMITH: And I also see it now in this 


SEC report as well. It’s in the report and, 


or the attachments rather. So I believe the 


story’s there. 


DR. NETON: Right, and I believe SC&A did an 


analysis of those 147 workers a month or more 


ago and the report that I read based on 


urinalysis didn’t indicate any real issues I 


didn’t think. 

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DR. BEHLING: Well, Jim, this is Hans again. 


We didn’t approach it from that point of view. 


We just looked at the continuity between pre-


and post-’61 as a timeframe for those 147. We 


never really looked at the issue as we’re 


discussing it right now. 


DR. NETON: Right, but then the most recent 


reincarnation was last time when we were 


discussing whether how could all those people 


have zeros, and that was the argument against 


this highest worker being badged. And I think 


we discussed that and put that issue to bed by 


indicating that a lot of the people were 


monitored for potential exposure to beta 


activity, not gamma activity. 


DR. BEHLING: Yeah, in fact, I was the 


person who wrote that memo that you are 


referring to. On the other hand, I also look 


at the beta-gamma ratio, and in truth, when 


you look at the MDL values for beta and gamma, 


if you have a zero gamma, you have close to 


zero beta as well so the two really go handin-hand. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think, again, I think 


there’s several issues here, and I think some 

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of those reports that were provided I’m not 


sure that SC&A completely reviewed them. But 


I’m assuming in your review of this evaluation 


report, you’ll roll up any outstanding issues 


on this topic. 


I mean, I’m listening here, Jim, and 


one thing that I’m thinking of, you know, just 


assuming that taking the position that the 


highest exposed individual was monitored, some 


things that have been said raised the question 


in my mind about sort of dilution of the 


distribution. You know, that there were these 


supplemental people badged and that data is in 


there, but when you add all this data in 


together, you know, what is your distribution 


representative of? 


Your distribution is also based on 


quarterly results, and those quarterly may 


well be 13 weeks, but then maybe one week for 


an individual I guess is what I’m hearing. So 


interpreting that, that coworker distribution, 


I think is more, you know, may not even now be 


down to a question of what the most highly 


exposed person monitored but rather just how 


is the coworker model being interpreted and 

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used for filling in the blanks for people 


without data? 


DR. NETON: I think there was some conscious 


effort on our part to fit these 147 workers. 


I’m sure George Kerr would agree to that. 


These were not randomly selected folks. I 


don’t know. I wasn’t prepared to go down this 


whole path again or I would have re-read all 


those reports. 


MR. GRIFFON: I also think you’ve provided a 


lot of, you know, you’ve given us those 


reports, and I think we ought to re-examine 


those is what I’m saying. 


MR. KERR: Let me make a comment, please. 


This is George Kerr. We very carefully went 


in and selected 147 workers who had 


significant amounts of monitoring data to do 


the regression, and obviously, if these people 


had a lot of records, they were, had some 


highest exposures to gammas. So this wasn’t 


going in and just selecting people at random. 


And also we did the beta regression. We went 


in and selected a set of people who had a 


significant number of orders of beta exposure 


data. And that was what we were looking for 

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to do in regression analysis. We think this 


is a claimant-favorable estimate for the 


population as a whole. For the people it 


doesn’t provide a claimant favorable, there 


are ways to scale the data up to make it 


claimant favorable. So I don’t see how we 


missed anything important in here. 


DR. NETON: Everyone needs to go back and 


refresh their memory I suppose on what these 


reports have, but I do think that they are 


fairly good scientific treatments of the 


issue. And I don’t know that we have the kind 


of holes that are being suggested at this 


point. 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. I think --


MR. GRIFFON: I think it’s more 


clarification, Jim, than suggesting that 


there’s holes, but anyway, go ahead, John. 


DR. MAURO: Jim and Mark, this is John 


Mauro. Jim, I agree, you folks have invested 


a tremendous amount of research and analysis. 


I was party to the last meeting. You provided 


us with a great deal of material and a lot to 


think about. We have all that material, and I 


think really the ball is in our court now to 

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digest it and to convince ourselves that, in 


fact, of the virtue of your position. But we 


do need to, we’re still looking at it. And I 


presume at some point we will be asked to 


prepare our findings and observations 


regarding this matter that we will deliver in 


draft form to the working group. 


DR. NETON: I appreciate that, John. I 


guess what I’m asking at this late juncture 


though is that when analyses are done, they 


don’t come sort of out of left field and say 


this could have been like Paducah but point 


specifically into why the technical analyses, 


and there’s hundreds and hundreds of pages 


that we’ve put together, are incorrect or 


inappropriate. Because otherwise then we end 


up just re-issuing the document again and 


saying, well, here’s where we addressed this. 


So it would be great for us if we would, you 


would couch these discussions in the context 


of what we have out there in addition to what 


you might have found yourself. But if you 


follow my --


DR. MAURO: Jim, I agree with you a hundred 


percent. We will do the best we can to 

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crystallize places where, if there are areas 


where we disagree, the basis for that 


disagreement, we will try to make it as clear 


as possible so to put the working group and 


the Board into a position to appreciate 


exactly where we agree to disagree, and then, 


of course, somehow that might need to be 


resolved. I’m not saying that’s where we’re 


going to come out on this, but we’re going to 


do our best to try to put a nice clean 


boundary around areas where we agree, on areas 


where we disagree and why so that the Board 


will be in a good position to make a judgment. 


DR. NETON: That’s fair enough, John. 


MR. GRIFFON: Jim, can I --


DR. NETON: I just wanted one more question 


though. At one point we had come to the 


conclusion that whether the highest exposed 


worker was badged or not, which we still 


believe is a solid position, that it was 


really a matter of whether you picked the 50th
 

or the 95th percentile, the distribution 


applied to unmonitored workers. 


MR. GRIFFON: I was just actually going to 


offer the same. That it may at the end of the 

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day being a site profile issue more than a, 


you know, a --


DR. NETON: Well, right, so if that’s the 


case, we’ve got a lot of other issues to deal 


with. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think, my sense, Jim, is 


that you’ve provided plenty of analysis on 


this topic and at this point it’s in SC&A’s 


court. And we have asked them to do a review 


of this evaluation report. And the evaluation 


report references those analyses. So that’s 


part of the process, they have to review. And 


I think we wait for their final product on 


that. 


DR. NETON: Right, is this an SEC issue or 


not? 


MR. GRIFFON: And if they, I would assume, 


John, that if you look at this and you still 


have some certain concerns, but you say, 


however, I mean, certainly, it’s within their 


purview to say however, we don’t believe it’s 


an SEC issue. We believe it could, a dose 


could still be calculated, et cetera, et 


cetera. So I think that could be handled that 


way and SC&A’s write up if appropriate. 

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MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. I thought we had 


sort of put that to bed, and that it was going 


to be considered a site profile issue. 


Perhaps I misunderstood what the discussion, 


where the discussion was going earlier. 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. I would 


take responsibility for the situation we’re in 


right now. At our last meeting, conference 


call, I did make a very sincere statement that 


in my opinion we were dealing with a site 


profile issue. However, I also apologize to 


the working group because by no means did I 


mean to pre-empt the working group and its 


judgment regarding this matter. And so as a 


result of that I have made my opinion known, 


but I think we certainly need to put our 


material in our report, our recommendations 


and findings to the working group, and of 


course, ultimately it will be the working 


group’s judgment as to whether or not, not 


withstanding the outcome of this debate, 


whether or not there’s a debate here that has 


any relevance to the SEC. 


MS. MUNN: Oh, yeah, I didn’t feel you were 


pre-empting anything, John. It was just my 

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understanding from the previous discussion was 


that we had sort of --


MR. GRIFFON: My sense was, at least from 


the action standpoint, I did leave that one 


open kind of, Wanda. I do remember John’s 


point, and I think we were kind of leaning 


that way, but we also at the last conference 


call had just received that lengthy addendum 


that George put together for us. And I 


thought it was a little hasty to just, you 


know, I think I was trying to give SC&A a 


little more time to assure themselves of the 


position on that so I left it open at this 


point. But I think it does have to be wrapped 


up in the final review and if it’s not, you 


know, if it’s a site profile issue, it should 


be stated that way in your review, John, you 


know, if there’s still some concerns but you 


believe they’re fully or clearly not SEC 


issues then I think you should state that so 


that we don’t have to consider it in these 


deliberations over the SEC petition. 


MS. MUNN: I guess I did misunderstand then 


what your position was, Mark. I guess I am 


concerned about the time constraints we have 

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here. And I guess the issue in my mind now is 


how soon the working group can resolve this 


particular point so that we can get it before, 


we can get our final comments before the Board 


for their action. Do you, what are we looking 


at in time here? 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s a good question. I 


would, I think we really do need a review of 


this evaluation report by SC&A prior to the 


Board, you know, to the work group prior to 


bringing this to the Board for full 


deliberation and consideration, but I’m not 


sure --


MS. MUNN: We need for us to be able to do 


this in Denver. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I know, and looking at 


the clock I’m not sure what this means, but 


John, do you have any sense of how long --


DR. MAURO: Yeah, I was giving some thought 


to that. My main concern is the example 


problems. That is, we certainly have had an 


opportunity to read the evaluation report, and 


we understand it. But as we read it we also 


realize that the evaluation report reads very 


much like a road map. To issue making cross­
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reference to a number of sections of the site 


profiles, to many OTIBs. 


And in the end the rubber meets the 


road with the example problems. And it was 


our intention to go through the example 


problems and go through the roadmap so to 


speak and say, okay, I see how they’re dealing 


with the exotic radionuclides. Oh, yes, I see 


exactly how they plan to use the data for back 


extrapolation in this particular example, the 


neutrons, et cetera, et cetera. 


And it looks like that there are six 


cases, where I’m going with all this is I 


think it’s very important that SC&A go through 


the example cases and come to our own sense 


that, yes, it looks like they not only have 


written up an evaluation report that addresses 


all the issues, they’ve also provided us with 


examples demonstrating that, yes, in fact, 


they can reconstruct the doses and address all 


the issues that were at play. That last part, 


going through the example problems, I’m not 


quite sure how time consuming that’s going to 


be. Quite frankly, I’m going to sort of put 


Hans on the spot. 

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Hans, as you know, has been leading up 


all of what I call the case reviews. And for 


all intents and purposes what we’re talking 


about is reviewing six cases. 


MR. GRIFFON: Not quite though, I think 


these are not full DRs in that sense, so 


you’re looking at theoretical DRs I think. 


Jim, am I correct in that? 


DR. NETON: Yeah, that’s right, Mark. 


MR. GRIFFON: You’re looking at proof of 


principle for certain aspects of the dose 


reconstruction. 


DR. NETON: These are much, I don’t want to 


say simpler, but more basic than a dose 


reconstruction. A proof of principle is the 


right term. 


MR. GRIFFON: And I don’t think it’s a 


matter of cross-walking with the original 


records and all that time consuming stuff done 


in a normal audit. 


DR. NETON: That’s correct, but there will 


be some interpretation required when one says 


we use -- and Hans is probably in the best 


position to make that determination. We, you 


know, assign the triangular distribution per 

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this procedure. And that’s some of the stuff 


that’s in those examples that I provided last 


night. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I don’t want to 


underestimate the time consumed. 


DR. MAURO: I hear what you’re saying, Jim, 


and I agree. In other words what you’re 


saying is we don’t really have to match every 


number. What we need to do is to convince 


ourselves that you have in place a protocol 


that will allow you to get to a number and 


that that protocol, in fact, is based on data 


and assumptions and models that seem 


reasonable without actually going that extra 


yard and actually matching the number. So I 


agree, the evaluation of your case is probably 


is a simpler process than a typical audit of 


cases. 


DR. NETON: One thing I might caution you 


though is that we, the ones that we put over 


were really ones that are proof of principle 


that we can do dose reconstructions that are 


plausibly bounding. In other words we, you 


know, for dose reconstructions as far as SEC 


determinations go, we have to be able to 

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demonstrate that we can bound the upper limit, 


but we also are aware that that upper limit 


has to be a plausible number. 


And that’s really what we tried to put 


out there, and, you know, I’d appreciate 


feedback on it if they’re not hitting the 


mark. I know they came out fairly late in the 


game, and I apologize for that, but we’re open 


for discussion on these. And maybe that’s 


where us, SC&A and NIOSH, can work together to 


get these examples fine-tuned in a quicker 


fashion. 


MR. GRIFFON: Given all this, John, and the 


time we have, I mean my hope was that we could 


get a review from --


DR. WADE: Mark just went away. Mark, 


there’s an awful lot of static on your end. 


MS. MUNN: It’s unhearable. I’m assuming 


that’s Mark’s phone. 


DR. WADE: Maybe they’ll take steps to 


rectify the problem. Mark, we can’t hear you. 


Let’s give him a minute. 


MS. MUNN: Give him time to get to another 

phone. 

DR. WADE: Yeah, I think it’s happened 
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before. He’s recognized it and come back to 


us. 


Are you back with us, Mark? 


MS. MUNN: My hope is he’s hung that one up 


and gone to another phone to call back in. 


DR. WADE: Well, who’s on the line? Mike, 

are you still there? 

MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I’m still here. 

DR. WADE: And Wanda, you’re there. Let’s 

give Mark a minute just as he was about to say 


something profound. 


MS. MUNN: In the interim, John, thank you 


for sending the, that dose reconstruction 


example. 


DR. MAURO: Okay, thank you. I had only had 


five, I believe, but we’ve been talking about 


six, so I may have missed one. 


MR. GRIFFON: Hi, it’s me back again. I’ve 


got to pay the phone bill. My portable went 


dead there. I hope I didn’t blow everybody 


out with the static. 


Well, I don’t know what was said, but 


I was hoping that SC&A could provide a review 


before the next meeting, at least maybe a day 


or two. To be fair I think that’s the best we 

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can expect, given it’s about two weeks away. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, Mark, let me say this. 


We’re going to hit this with everything we 


have, the Y-12 cases. And what we will do is 


we will start moving through each of the cases 


and the issues that are in play, and we will 


stay in continual touch with you as we move 


through the process. It may turn out we can 


move through it expeditiously and deliver a 


report or at least some findings and 


observations regarding these matters to the 


working group, and we could even hold some 


discussions before the meeting. 


But I hate to make that type of 


commitment because we haven’t even looked at 


the example problems yet. But we will be 


doing that immediately and we will say within 


a matter of a day or two we should be in a 


better position to start to let you know how 


our position’s going to be by the time we’re 


ready for the meeting on the 24th . 


DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. I have a 


question about the dose reconstructions and 


the maximum plausible doses which is I kind of 


quickly scrolled through the Word documents 

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summarizing the dose reconstructions at the 


break, and I didn’t see that there was a 


discussion in any of them -- I might easily 


have missed it -- of how this overlaps with 


the proposed class. Whether these workers, 


for instance, in the number five case which is 


a uranium dose reconstruction and the person 


was in 92-12, what you do about potential 


thorium exposure at, how does the uranium and 


thorium exposure overlap? 


DR. NETON: Well, Arjun, you might have 


missed it, but we’re proposing to add workers 


who were exposed to thorium to this class so 


we’re not doing thorium exposures. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no, no, I understand 


that. The, no, but I guess I don’t know how 


to ask the question right. If the class 


consists of people who are thorium workers, 


who were, presumably who were dealing present 


in these buildings and some of them were also 


exposed to uranium or they were maintenance 


workers. I don’t understand how you deal with 


the overlap. Who’s in the class? 


DR. NETON: That’s two kinds of questions. 


I think depending on, I guess, the view point, 

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we believe we can do uranium dose 


reconstructions for all workers. That’s our 


position at least. Now how a thorium worker 


gets added is a little more problematic and 


that’s an SEC class definition issue, but one, 


we’d have to establish that these people 


worked in those buildings and had the 


potential to be exposed to thorium. 


We don’t necessarily make that 


determination from our end. We are in the 


position of defining what we cannot 


reconstruct. And that’s where we ended up. 


But we will reconstruct all uranium exposures 


for anyone who has not been determined to be a 


thorium worker. 


DR. MAURO: This is a good discussion. Let 


me, let’s say we’re going through the 


examples, and we say, okay, we agree that this 


example demonstrates the methodology for 


reconstructing the doses to uranium or some 


internal emitter, other internal emitter or an 


external exposure. But let’s say we’re 


talking about a real person now. But we have 


no way of knowing whether this real person 


that we’re looking at did, in fact, was, in 

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fact, exposed to any thorium. 


And so in a funny sort of way our 


review of your cases may very well come out 


something like this. Yes, we see the approach 


you’ve done. We believe you can reconstruct 


the doses to exposures to uranium or many of 


these other radionuclides that we’ve been 


talking about. But we don’t know whether or 


not this particular worker was exposed to any 


thorium. And so we really can’t say whether 


or not the reconstruction for that worker is 


complete. How do we deal with that? 


DR. NETON: I’m not sure, John. I mean, is 


Larry Elliott on the phone? 


MR. ELLIOTT: I am on the phone. 


DR. NETON: Larry, can you help me out here 


because it’s my understanding that we don’t 


make the determination. 


MR. ELLIOTT: That’s right, this is an 


aspect of development of a claim that 


Department of Labor conducts as they do for a 


congressionally established SEC sites, and we 


have vetted our definitions on the Y-12, Rocky 


Flats and the Ames with the Department of 


Labor. And they have commented that they 

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understand the definitions as proposed and 


feel that they can have the wherewithal to 


develop the claims to put the people in the 


class or find them not to be included in the 


class. 


MR. GIBSON: Larry, this is Mike Gibson. So 


if I could just try to understand what you’re 


saying. On page 11 of the evaluation report 


for Y-12 there’s a Table 4.1, Y-12 claims 


submitted for thorium, Y-12 claims submitted, 


and it says ’96. Is that all the workers that 


have filed claims or is that only the workers 


that I guess you’re saying DOL thinks --


MR. ELLIOTT: Four point one and the ’96 


total claims that you see listed in that table 


are claims that we have in our possession here 


at NIOSH for dose reconstruction that have 


time in the class period. 


DR. NETON: Larry, can I help you out a 


little bit though? I think what’s happened is 


this table is in error actually. That number 


was for the original class petitioned by --


MR. ELLIOTT: Oh, that the petitioner 


submitted? 


DR. NETON: Yeah, and so in reality that 

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table should be revised to include what we’re 


calling now our proposed class. So I 


apologize for that error, but I noticed that 


this morning and meant to point it out. 


MR. ELLIOTT: I didn’t catch that either, 


but the footnote calls for the time period of 


the class. 


DR. NETON: It’s the right time period and 


everything but --


MR. ELLIOTT: But be that as it may, you 


know, the numbers that would be in this table 


if they were correct would only be the claims 


that we know we have in our hands that have an 


identified timeframe subject to the class 


definition. We do not have the ability here 


to develop the basis for whether a claim would 


have the right cancer type, latency and 


duration of exposure or duration of time in 


the class period to be included in the SEC 


class. 


MR. GIBSON: This is Mike again. So it’s, 


it is limited to those that you think meet the 


criteria, not the total number that are 


submitted or have filed claims? 


MR. ELLIOTT: Once we get this table right, 

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whatever that number will be, will be for the 


claims who have time in the period of the 


class. 


DR. NETON: I can put a little light on 


that. We believe that there are about 850 


people that have time in that class. Well, 


not in the thorium class, but in the total 


people who have worked between in the SEC time 


period that were not already eligible based on 


the first, you know, the initial Y-12 SEC. So 


there would be about 850 total claimants 


eligible for cases, eligible to be considered 


as thorium workers I think is the way. 


MR. ELLIOTT: And to take that further then 


the Department of Labor will take those 


claims. We give the Department of Labor a 


full list of those claims, and they would then 


develop whether that individual claim was a 


thorium worker or not. 


MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson again just 


as a follow up. So I’m still just trying to 


determine how you make the definition, you 


know, for instance are you including 


maintenance workers? Because they usually 


typically rove all over the plant. So I mean, 

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are they included in that or --


DR. NETON: If the maintenance worker was 


monitored or should have monitored for 


exposure to thorium, yes. 


MR. ELLIOTT: If the maintenance worker 


frequented these buildings listed in the 


definition and should have been monitored or 


was monitored for thorium, yes, they would be 


in the class. 


MR. GIBSON: So are there records in the 


database to show which buildings they worked 


in or --


MR. ELLIOTT: Well, your question goes to 


the way that DOL develops the eligibility of a 


claim for the class, but I can’t speak to that 


although I know that other than I know they 


use affidavits; they use records that are 


available to them to assess whether the 


individual claim fits into the class. Our 


basis, our evaluation report is to provide a 


scientific basis on whether or not we can 


conduct dose reconstruction to a sufficient 


level of accuracy and whether or not then, if 


not, was health endangered. That’s what we’re 


required to do, and that’s what we’ve 

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attempted to do in this evaluation report. 


MR. GIBSON: Right, I understand that, 


Larry. This is Mike again. I’m just saying 


I’m trying to determine how you or how DOL 


determines if people should have been 


monitored for thorium. That’s all I’m saying. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I don’t know if Jeff can 


help us out if he’s still on the phone. But 


they do this for the existing congressional 


SECs which have similar language, should have 


been monitored or were monitored. 


MR. GIBSON: Okay, and I’m not trying to be 


argumentative --


MR. ELLIOTT: No, I understand. 


MR. GIBSON: I’m just saying to be claimant 


friendly and I know you can only go just back 


and get the records you can get, but it’s just 


if they don’t exist, you know, it just doesn’t 


seem, I don’t know. Is Jeff Kotsch on the 


line? Could he speak to this issue? 


DR. WADE: Either Jeff isn’t on the line or 


doesn’t wish to speak to that. Again, you’re 


asking an excellent question, and at a minimum 


we’ll ask our colleagues at DOL to come to the 


Board meeting prepared to answer this 

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question. Again, by statute this is not the 


NIOSH responsibility. It is the DOL 


responsibility, and it would be, I think, 


wrong for us to try and categorize how they do 


this. The best thing for us to do is to 


invite them to come and brief the Board in a 


complete way as to how they would go about 


this activity. 


MR. GIBSON: Okay, thank you, Lew. 


MR. GRIFFON: Although to me, I mean, just 


to follow up on Mike’s line of questioning, I 


mean I think to me this seems like I don’t 


know that there are any, there’s no job title, 


thorium worker, at Y-12. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I don’t think, Mark, that 


this intent is to call someone a thorium 


worker. I think really --


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, but I’m just wondering 


if, you know, does DOL have enough information 


to make this decision or does it, it would, I 


think, count on NIOSH for some process 


information on those various buildings and 


those kind of things. 


DR. NETON: Those all have to be worked out. 


I think you’re right, but I think the intent 

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here is that if, you know, to segregate out 


people who have potential for exposure to 


thorium versus someone who may have set a foot 


in the building at one point to deliver a 


piece of paper, I mean, one has to make some 


cut points here, and how Labor does that, I 


think Lew’s right. They need to speak for 


themselves, but --


MR. GIBSON: This is Mike again. Did I cut 


you off, Jim? I’m sorry. 


DR. NETON: No, no, that’s fine. 


MR. GIBSON: I wasn’t just limiting this to 


thorium, I was just getting to the in general 


for any radioisotope which I think is the 


intendance of the act is exposure to any 


isotopes so I don’t want it to be defined as I 


was just asking the question strictly about 


thorium, you know, it’s DOL or whoever makes 


this decision. How do they base it on 


exposure or unmonitored exposure to any 


isotope? 


DR. WADE: I’ll see that we make the request 


of our colleagues at DOL to come in and brief 


the Board on this. Thank you, I think it’s a 


pertinent discussion. I don’t think it’s one 

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we can have the closure here, but I think it’s 


excellent that it was brought up. And we’ll 


work to see that there is information shared 


with you. I mean, if NIOSH is in a position 


to do its job, and that’s what NIOSH is 


presenting, what happens once that job is done 


falls to another agency and we need to be sure 


you understand that. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Dr. Wade, this is Arjun 


Makhijani. So I presume that by the time a 


case come to NIOSH one assumes that they were 


not exposed to thorium in that period because 


everybody else, the thorium-exposed people 


have been already taken out of the 


consideration or --


DR. NETON: Fundamentally, that’s correct, 


Arjun, except that we already have many of the 


cases here. What will happen is the 


Department of Labor will re-evaluate all the 


cases that they sent to us and make a 


determination of which ones we don’t need to 


proceed with dose reconstructions. 


DR. WADE: Yeah, depending on how the 


decision is made, once it’s made there’ll be 


an awful lot of activity that we’ll have to 

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happen to implement that decision. And we’ll 


attempt to brief you thoroughly, brief the 


Board thoroughly on that at the next meeting. 


In a way your decision is sort of independent 


of that. Again, you have a responsibility to 


act upon the proposal as it’s brought to you 


if your consideration in your opinion needs to 


be informed based upon what DOL has to say. 


Then we’ll see that you have that information. 


MR. GIBSON: This is Mike again though, you 


know, not trying to belabor this, but just if 


NIOSH gets the records and DOL makes the 


determination and then turns around and comes 


back to NIOSH, it’s almost like a criteria 


setup that would make an SEC impossible. 


MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry. DOL does not 


come back to us for this kind of development, 


and they’re not seeking that job categories or 


titles that we think fit into this class or 


that we don’t fit into this class. 


MR. GIBSON: Right, I understand that, but I 


mean you guys have the records, and then you 


have a dialogue with DOL and then they come 


back to you. And it just, in the back and 


forth it just seems like it could basically 

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sabotage a legitimate SEC petition or criteria 


if that makes sense. 


MR. ELLIOTT: I guess your point’s lost on 


me. Certainly, if we have any records here 


that speak to types of workers, job 


categories, process information, rosters of 


individuals who frequented buildings, we would 


give that to DOL to help them make their 


determination and make the developments as we 


have done in the past. But I guess I’m not 


clearly understanding the point you’re trying 


to make. 


And I’m not trying to be 


argumentative. I just want you to understand 


that when it comes to responsibilities, this 


is one that the Department of Labor takes 


seriously, and it’s their responsibility to 


follow up on it. As Lew mentioned we’ll make 


sure that DOL is at the Board meeting to 


provide an elucidative answer here. 


DR. WADE: Maybe just as brief background, 


Larry, I mean the issues of employment and 


where an individual worked, those have always 


been DOL judgments, not NIOSH judgments. 


MR. ELLIOTT: That’s correct, and when, for 

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example, when we identify additional 


employment history in our development of work 


histories, we transmit that information back 


to DOL with the claimant’s knowledge and 


understanding that their claim will include 


the additional employment history that we have 


found. So the same would be true as we work 


with DOL on moving claims through these 


different classes that are being added to the 


special exposure cohort. 


DR. WADE: I’m sorry this is complex. It is 


to us as well. But again, we’ll see that, to 


the degree we can make it happen, as clear an 


explanation as possible is provided to you at 


the next Board meeting. 


MR. ELLIOTT: I mean, Mike or anybody, if 


you’ll look at the congressional-designated 


classes to the SEC, you’ll see similar 


wording, were monitored or should have been 


monitored. And DOL evidently from that, from 


the genesis of this program have developed 


ways and means to place people in those 


classes based upon that language. 


MR. GIBSON: But right, I understand that, 


but -- this is Mike Gibson again. But it’s 

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based on the data that NIOSH has that they 


give to DOL to develop their opinion, right? 


So --


MR. ELLIOTT: If we have data, we give it to 


them, but not in all cases do we have data 


that aids them in developing a claim fit into 


the class. 


MR. GIBSON: Okay, well, yeah, I think 


that’s kind of my point. The determinations 


are based on data that’s available to you. 


MR. ELLIOTT: No, not in all cases. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Larry, this is Arjun. I 


have a different kind of question. I mean in 


the congressional-designated SEC classes, or 


instance, if you take Paducah, the existence 


and who worked, I mean, most workers worked 


with recycled uranium. And you know, they 


were monitored for uranium so there was an 


overlap of the missing piece of information 


with the existing piece of information. In 


this case thorium was not the prominent 


material being processed. And as you found, 


there appear to be essentially no personal 


data that have been located, no monitoring. 


So no one was monitored in the period in 

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question. So since it was a minor 


radionuclide whose extent of processing 


doesn’t seem to be very clear except that Mel 


Chew said it was hundreds of kilograms, and 


probably there’s a document to that effect, it 


seems a little bit more complicated and 


difficult --


MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, I understand, and you are 


correct. I’m sure it will be more complicated 


and difficult than what DOL applies in the 


congressional classes that were so designated. 


But I think you will, you know, once DOL can 


relate to you how they do this development 


work, you know, for Paducah I know that there 


are secretaries or administrative or clerical 


folks that they exclude that they send to us 


for dose reconstruction because those people 


were not viewed as someone who had a job that 


should have been monitored. 


DR. WADE: Okay, well, this is a complex 


issue, but it’s an issue really of the 


relative responsibilities at the different 


agencies. NIOSH’s judgment here is to 


evaluate whether or not doses can be 


reconstructed consistent with the language of 

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the rule, and that’s a judgment we make. How 


the administrative decisions to implement that 


really fall with DOL, and we need to bring DOL 


to the table to explain that to you so that 


you can be again aware of that as you make 


your progress. 


MR. GIBSON: Lew, this is Mike again. If 


I’ve got you right they’ll be ready hopefully, 


I know you can’t speak for them, but what at 


least I would like, I can’t speak for the 


Board, the definition of exposure is to any 


type of radionuclide, not just thorium or 


plutonium or whatever. 


DR. WADE: I understand that. I mean, what 


I’ll ask them to do is to just come, send 


someone knowledgeable who can come and talk to 


us, explain to us, to you, how they go about 


making these judgments, the generic approach. 


And again, I can’t promise that’ll happen. It 


is certainly something I’ll set out to do on 


your behalf. But again, it’s not that we 


understand this crystal clear and you don’t. 


I mean, this is, again, in this program every 


time we turn a corner we discover, we are into 


new territory and now we are again. And we 

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need to make this as clear as we can to you as 


you go forward. 


MR. GIBSON: Okay, yeah, thanks. 


DR. WADE: Yeah, thank you. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right, Jim, at this point are 


you, you pretty much went through the 


approach, right, in the evaluation report? 


DR. NETON: Right. I’d just like to add one 


more thing though. It was all really good 


discussion. I think the discussion was 


precipitated by John and I think Arjun wanting 


clarification whether they needed to look at 


these examples in light of the fact of can we 


do thorium for these workers. 


And I think what I’m hearing is that 


the answer is no at this point. I mean, we’re 


defining the class as thorium workers and then 


that falls under the Department of Labor. So 


I just want to make sure. I think, I hope 


we’re all on that same page. That’s what I’m 


understanding anyways. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think if I were in John’s, I 


think I would advise John to put that, you 


know, we assume that the thorium was not 


considered here and take that up as a separate 

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discussion. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, my understanding is we’re 


off the hook on that one. And we will just 


look at the issues that are before us and 


thorium is not one of the issues that we need 


to look at. 


DR. NETON: Right, okay, I just wanted to 


make sure that we were all on that same page. 


Okay, Mark, I pretty much outlined the 


approaches for where we’re, what we’re doing 


and --


MR. GRIFFON: What I was going to suggest is 


maybe to quickly go through the matrix and 


then get into the sample DRs if that makes 


sense. And I don’t know if people want to 


take a break first or if this would be a good 


time for Ray to get, I mean, if people want a 


five-minute break and then start into the 


matrix and the samples? 


DR. WADE: Seems reasonable. 


MR. SMITH: Before you go on a break this is 


Matt Smith in Richland. I am going to ask one 


of our staff, Steve Reed (ph), who is a dose 


reconstructor on these to try to call in for 


this part of the meeting for any external 

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dosimetry that may come up. 


DR. NETON: That’s fine, Matt. 


MR. GRIFFON: And I’m hoping the matrix 


section will only take a half hour or so. I 


think we’ve hit on a lot of the points 


already. 


DR. NETON: I think you’re right. 


MR. GRIFFON: Go through for purposes of 


completeness. 


MS. MUNN: We were down to very few items 


that --


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I highlighted in yellow 


so I hope we can skip through this matrix 


fairly quickly. So let’s maybe reconvene at 


3:00 p.m. eastern. 


DR. WADE: Thank you. 


MS. MUNN: I’m going to stay on the line. 


(Whereupon, a break was taken from 2:55 to 


3:00 p.m.) 


MR. GRIFFON: Why don’t we start. I’m sure 


Mike will be on in a second. 


MATRIX DISCUSSION
 

I was going to say just to go through 


the matrix fairly quickly hopefully. And 


looking down the first item I have is item 

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number two, and I think that this is all 


rolled into Appendix 1, your response to this, 


right, Jim? 


DR. NETON: That’s correct. 


MS. MUNN: There was a point, I was of the 


impression that they were covered and this is 


now good to go, incorrect? 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, I think that that’s your 


final deliverable on that item I believe, 


yeah. That’s what I would say. I think 


you’ve responded to all the questions and 


requests in that area. 


DR. NETON: Correct, given the timeframe 


available to us we’ve done as good a job as 


we’re going to get at this point, and it’s 


unlikely to change. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right, okay, item three is 


similar. I think it’s also in that appendix. 


Now there’s no further information on 


logbooks. Any more being done on the punch 


card data, Jim? 


DR. NETON: No, I think you heard Bill 


Tankersley say that he was going to but time 


did not allow for him to look at the punch 


cards. I think that this calls for us to look 

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at, so I tried to identify punch cards in the 


SEC period and we just have not been able to 


do that. 


MR. GRIFFON: But there’s nothing, you know, 


like work in progress. It didn’t sound like 


it. 


DR. NETON: No, I think at this point we’ve, 


you know, our report stands as it is. 


MR. GRIFFON: And then item six, we might 


want to slightly amend that to say that you 


have this Hap West report, correct? 


DR. NETON: Correct. I will get that on the 


O drive as soon as possible. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Is that that document now 


resides on the O drive? 


DR. NETON: Bill, it’s actually on your O 


drive, but not the one that I can access. So 


we need to get together and figure out where 


it goes. If you send it to me, I’ll put it 


out where I know I can, I’ve been doing it. 


MR. GRIFFON: Bill will have to take care of 


that. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, that’s fine. We’ll get it 


out there. 


MS. MUNN: Can we just amend that statement 

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a little bit to say could locate only 


secondary documentation? It’s not the primary 


letter. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, secondary document, they 


did identify secondary documentation 


indicating that this was the case, okay. 


Moving on down, if anybody ever, or 


has any input, stop me along the way here, but 


I’m down to item 1-b, number two. I had added 


to this that NIOSH will provide the 


methodology in how data will be used for dose 


reconstructions. And this was for these 


exotics for lack of a better term. 


DR. NETON: And we still owe that as a 


deliverable under the, I felt that we would 


cover that in the example dose 


reconstructions. 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s what I assumed. 


DR. NETON: There was a number 11 and, I 


believe, a number 12. One spoke to exotics, 


and one spoke to, I think, thorium and 


plutonium and other nuclides. And we need to 


get those out. 


MR. GRIFFON: And then 2-b, this question of 


uranium enveloped, the Delta view uranium. 

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Did we see analysis on that? I thought, Jim, 


that you were going to provide us with 


something on that. I may be wrong on that. 


DR. NETON: You know, Mark, my mind’s a 


little fuzzy on that. I know that we 


discussed this at the last working group 


meeting, and Bill Tankersley, I think, spoke 


to an analysis, but I don’t remember if we 


handed it out or not. 


Bill, can you help me out? 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Sure, and we did send that, 


you know, the highest number in the -- I’ve 


forgotten now. There’s a 700 or so such 


uranium data in the Delta view image file and 


the highest number I think is 330 or something 


like that. And so the conclusion is that the 


Y-12 electronic database, of course, bounds 


the data, the uranium data that are in the 


Delta view system. 


DR. NETON: Well, this is a little more than 


that, Bill. I thought that we were, and I 


thought that we had done an analysis to 


demonstrate that if the Delta view uranium 


data were incorporated into the coworker 


model, there would be no net effect on the 

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coworker model. And intuitively it kind of 


made sense because there’s only, what, 6,000 


samples in Delta view versus literally 


hundreds of thousands in the coworker, and I 


thought that someone had done that analysis. 


We talked about it at the last meeting. 


MR. GRIFFON: Although the Delta view data 


tended to be skewed toward those early years 


when --


DR. NETON: I think that my recollection was 


that the Delta view data were almost all 


zeros. Remember, we had this discussion, and 


MR. GRIFFON: Maybe this is just a small 


follow up, but may be something. It seems, I 


mean I don’t disagree with what Bill just said 


and what you said. Maybe just to close the 


loop on that. 


DR. NETON: I must have dreamt this, but I 


thought we had an analysis that we discussed. 


We’ll follow up and make sure. 


MR. GRIFFON: I don’t recall. If it’s out 


there, then just let us know and we’ll --


DR. NETON: I’ve been dreaming a lot lately. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Well, we could certainly do 

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that very easy, Jim, but nothing like that has 


been done. If I understand you correctly, 


you’re saying to integrate those limited 


number of Delta view data into the Y-12 


dataset and see if it skews the percentiles or 


whatever. That’s easily done, but nothing 


like that has been done. 


DR. NETON: Yes, and I don’t think, Bill, we 


need to go as far as incorporating it into the 


major database. I think if we just took some 


summary statistics on the Delta view and 


demonstrated that it was either consistent 


with or provided lower values than the 


coworkers data that were used then we’d be 


okay. And my judgment, and maybe that’s where 


I dreamt this, that with all those zeros it 


certainly wouldn’t be skewing in a bias high 


direction. 


MR. GRIFFON: I agree, Jim, just for 


purposes of closure. 


DR. NETON: Absolutely, we’ll make sure we 


close that loop. 


MR. GRIFFON: Number three I had that NISOH 


will provide a (inaudible) to be used for dose 


reconstruction for these radionuclides, and 

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maybe again this is in sample DRs? 


MS. MUNN: That’s my interpretation. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think so. Is that correct, 


Jim? 


MS. MUNN: I thought that was what we asked 


for. That we asked for them. Hello, Jim? 


DR. NETON: Oh, I’m sorry I had it on mute. 


Yes, I agree, but some of these probably won’t 


be covered though. For example, I discussed 


neptunium early on and one could make a value 


judgment whether we’re on target with that or 


not but --


MR. GRIFFON: It’s something for obvious 


reasons won’t be covered, right? 


DR. NETON: Right, but the key one in my 


mind on this list is the plutonium exposures, 


possibly the polonium. We did discuss the U233 alpha could be bracketed using the uranium 


gross, the uranium measurements. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Jim, could I ask a question 


about the U-233? 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Would that mean that you’d 


be assuming that things were U-233 instead of 


U-234 the way you usually do? 

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DR. NETON: If it was activity, alpha 


activity, we would just assume it was U-233. 


Although I’m not sure about the daughters of 


U-233. Let’s see, that would indicate a 


Thorium-229. 


We were just having a sidebar 


conversation. Liz Brackett is reminding me 


that the dose conversion factors are almost 


the same for U-234 and 233. Although does not 


U-233 indicate a Thorium-229? I forgot. It 


might. Thorium-229’s got a lot of daughters, 


but it might have a high enough half-life 


where it wouldn’t create much Thorium-229. 


MR. GRIFFON: Either way you’ll take the 


conservative approach, right? 


DR. NETON: Sure, if the dose conversion 


factors were higher because of Thorium-229 in 


gross which I’m not sure it does, we would 


certainly make that adjustment. If they were 


almost identical, then it wouldn’t really even 


matter for us in the dose reconstruction to 


segregate out a U-233 exposure from a normal 


uranium alpha exposure. 


MR. GRIFFON: Any other comments on that? 


MS. MUNN: We taking the position that the 

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examples then do cover that outstanding issue? 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s what I’m noting, Jim. 


Is that accurate? 


DR. NETON: That’s, yes, I hope. 


MR. GRIFFON: Now I’m down to number five, 


and I just wanted to make sure I had this 


correct, Jim. I put NIOSH indicated that the 


final model to be used is in the latest site 


profile document, for recycled uranium this 


is. 


DR. NETON: Right, our intent there was that 


the write up that’s in the last version of the 


site profile is what we would use. And that 


we could not identify a credible scenario that 


would concentrate the individual radionuclides 


above their arrival mixture. Outside of the 


neptunium, it was intentionally pulled off our 


ion exchange column. 


So in other words it was not an 


enrichment plant so there were no traps or 


anything as such that might have been present 


at places like Paducah or whatever. And so 


we’re applying those ratios. I think we added 


one more piece to the evaluation report that 


talks about the Paducah feed plant ash issue 

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that was raised by SC&A in, I think it was 


example seven. 


And you’ll find in our example write 


up there that rather than do a dose 


reconstruction for number seven, we provided a 


brief one-page write up as to why we felt that 


there was no exposure scenario that we could 


determine for the Paducah feed plant ash since 


it wasn’t processed at Y-12. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Jim, I took a brief look at 


that at the break, and I presume that there is 


some documentation saying that these plants 


were never opened and so on. 


DR. NETON: Well, I can’t guarantee that’s 


true, Arjun. We need to look into that. 


Bryce Rich is on the phone I believe. 


MR. RICH: Yes, that’s true. There are 


some, a few references there. It’s not 


extensive but enough to convince that there 


was no processing of the Paducah ash at Y-12. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, no, no, I understand 


the no processing. I was just wondering 


regarding the repackaging and so on. 


MR. RICH: There was none of that there. It 


delivered, I think as a reference indicates, 

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105 

in metal containers. And as near as we can 


determine by inventories, I believe I 


understand nine metric tons could have been on 


site. 


Can I go back to the U-233 just for 


clarification? 


DR. NETON: Sure. 


MR. RICH: The Uranium-233 process only 


encompassed just a few months, consisted of 


just a few kilograms, and was conducted in a 


lockbox environment, and coupled with the dose 


conversion would be essentially equivalent to 


234 and appeared to be, addressed that. 


MR. GRIFFON: All right, I think I’m down to 


item 1-a in the external. And looking at item 


three, I deleted the phrase more discussion is 


needed on this topic. I think we’ve discussed 


this already and SC&A is going to look at this 


issue in the evaluation. It’s fully 


incorporated into the evaluation report as it 


stands. 


Is that correct, Jim? 


DR. NETON: I agree with that. 


MR. GRIFFON: And I think SC&A will capture 


that in the review of the evaluation report. 

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Number four, this was, oh, this was, I 


think you had finished up in Appendix 1 the 


section where you showed 1953 data, Delta view 


data. 


DR. NETON: Right. 


MR. GRIFFON: However, we did indicate that 


in 1951 there was this question about a 


discrepancy between the Delta view and CER 


database, and I think you were going to follow 


up on that and also other raw records. I 


think you indicated in the last phone call 


that you had found some cards related to 


computer entries of some of external 


exposures. And I don’t know if you were going 


to pursue that any further or what was done 


with that. 


DR. NETON: I’m pretty sure we haven’t 


pursued that any further at this point. 


Again, time constraints came into play. I 


don’t, we don’t -- Bill Tankersley or someone 


at ORAU’s side has an update on this. We have 


not been able to put this issue, to advance 


this issue any further. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Well, this is Bill 


Tankersley. Very quickly and very briefly, we 

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had nothing to compare original data to in the 


electronic database in 1950 and ’51. There 


are a number of records in there as Mark has 


pointed out, but they’re all zeros, and we 


don’t have an explanation for that. We feel 


like the regression analysis model would be 


applicable at times. 


The third point there, none of us have 


any -- and it must be a misunderstanding or a 


missed communication -- none of us here have 


any recollection of any punch cards for 


external data. I don’t remember any. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, maybe I dreamt that one, 


Jim, I don’t know. I thought I heard, maybe I 


was thinking about the urine punch cards, but 


there was no, I will take your word on that. 


I could have easily... 


I guess the question on the 1951 


records is, you know, in your evaluation 


report you present the ’53 and the fact that 


it does compare very well. But in ’51 it was 


all zeros in the raw data or all zeros in the 


database, and the Delta view data clearly had 


a number of positive values. I mean not any 


shocking values, but in the hundreds of 

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millirem. 


DR. NETON: Were those pocket dosimeter 


results? 


MR. GRIFFON: No, no, no, there were pocket 


dosimeter results, too, but there were film 


badge measurements. 


DR. NETON: I recall having this 


conversation, and we just have not had time to 


go and put that issue to bed. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I may be a little bit at 


fault here. I have some Delta view database 


image numbers that I think I said I would pass 


on to you, and somehow at the end of the 


meeting I did not. I will send you an e-mail 


today. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Not necessary because we 


have the Delta view data in a database here, 


and Mark, you’re absolutely right. There are 


some film badge data in the Delta view system 


for at least ‘51 I think. I’m not sure about 


’50, but again, there’s really, we don’t know 


of anything to do because the values that are 


in this electronic database are all zeros 


except for I think there’s one positive value 


in 1950. 

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109 

As I remember, and we really have been 


doing a lot of things, I think I checked the 


number of people who were monitored, in other 


words, who have IDs in those earlier years in 


the electronic database against some numbers 


that are said to be monitored in the HP 


reports and they came out very close. We did 


also do a very nice analysis, George and I, on 


the records in 1959. They had a very nice 


table where they had the number of people in 


ranges zero to one, one to two, on up, I 


think, up to 13 rem. And those numbers 


compared to what’s in the electronic database 


were virtually perfect. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, I guess this 


goes to just the fact that just because the 


results are not the way, don’t support your 


case doesn’t mean you don’t include them in an 


analysis of the reliability. 


MR. KERR: Mark, the one thing you have to 


be careful in that ’51 data is a lot of the 


people who are listed on those sheets are X-10 


employees. 


MR. GRIFFON: That might be one way to take 

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MR. KERR: There are a lot of them, and on 


the first few sheets in the Delta view, the X10 people are not necessarily identified. As 


you get over on some of the later sheets, they 


start to identify the X-10 people. So what 


you’ve got to sort of do is go back and 


highlight the X-10 people on the earlier 


sheets to really identify them. And once you 


do that, you find out that I think the 


preponderance of people on those sheets are X10. 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, that may be, George, I 


guess that’s what I asked for. If that --


MR. KERR: That doesn’t account for the 


complete discrepancy, but that takes care of a 


sizeable portion of it. 


MR. GRIFFON: It may, yeah, and if it does, 


that would be great if that was written up, 


and that could very well explain the 


difference or most of the differences anyway. 


MS. MUNN: Is there anything in this 


discussion that I have missed that would lead 


us to anything other than a feeling of comfort 


with respect to how the CER database is used? 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, all I’m trying to do, I 

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guess what I’m trying to get at, Wanda, is 


you’ve got very little raw data at all to 


compare for the external. I think they’ve got 


a fair amount that they’ve looked at for the 


internal. And you’ve got, right now I see one 


piece in 1953 from Delta view. And I think 


that it’s kind of sparse so to the extent we 


can expand on that it would at least support 


the case further. 


MS. MUNN: So what you’re asking for really 


is just essentially what we’ve discussed here 


right now, assurance that there is a reason 


for the discrepancy? 


MR. GRIFFON: Right, or just, yeah, if they 


can cross-walk that and say these were all X10 people or all but one of them was X-10, and 


therefore, some very minor discrepancy, then 


that would take care of it. 


DR. NETON: Let me make sure, Bill 


Tankersley, you said you know where these 


records are located? We don’t necessarily 


need Arjun’s file? 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Not necessary at all 


because those data we have put in in a real 


database. He’s welcome to --

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DR. NETON: No, no, that’s fine, I just want 


to make sure that we were aware we’re speaking 


of the same records, and I hear Mark pretty 


clearly here. We need to take a look at this 


to the extent we can, and then in the next few 


days, and try to address this issue. 


MS. MUNN: And put the right words 


somewhere. 


DR. NETON: Right, I’m not sure where the 


words are going to go, but we will be prepared 


to at least comment on what we were able to do 


or not able to do, to accomplish. 


MR. GRIFFON: And then number 4-a. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, before you move on, 


there’s sort of a point here that may be 


important as a question which is that in the 


evaluation report, and I think also maybe 


elsewhere -- I read too many documents I think 


-- the processes when you back extrapolate the 


’48 and ’49, I think you say that the 


processes were the same as the early ‘50s. 


And I think in the TBD or TIB-0029 or some 


place you say that they were the same up to 


1951. 


So it seems to me that there were so 

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few people externally monitored in 1950 and 


’51, 148 and 184, and since the processes seem 


to have changed in ’52, this question would 


seem to be kind of rather in important in 


terms of how you can handle the data since the 


later data might not be applicable to the ’50, 


’51, ’40 and ’49 periods. At least that’s how 


I read your evaluation report. Maybe I didn’t 


read it right. 


DR. NETON: I didn’t catch all of what you 


were saying, Arjun, but I think what we’ve 


done is we’ve taken the 1951 data and went 


back into ’40, ’49 and Liz Brackett is telling 


me that she assumed that the (unintelligible) 


occurred in ’48. What that would imply is 


that these were 1951 data for a 1948 and ’49 


intake which would really jack up those 


intakes substantially. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no, I’m not questioning 


the method in terms of internal dose at this 


time. I just am trying to understand what’s 


happening in regard to the verification of the 


external dose records here in that there 


weren’t many people who were monitored in ’50 


and ’51, and even fewer in 1949. And so since 

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the processes changed in ’52 that would also 


presumably affect the external dose question. 


And I notice that Dr. Kerr started his 


external dose analysis only in 1951. It seems 


like it’s important as a technical issue in 


terms of processes and job types to have this 


1950, ’51 external dose data with some 


confidence as to what it was. 


DR. NETON: I’m missing, I guess, the point 


because we, George Kerr started in 1960 with 


the external data and extrapolated backwards ­

-


DR. MAKHIJANI: I’m not talking about the 


147, I’m talking about the number of workers, 


the charts in the Kerr paper handed out in 


February then revised version in March that 


showed the number of people monitored. Dr. 


Kerr will know exactly figures one and two 


that I’m referring to that showed the 


cumulative personnel doses as well as the 


individual doses and the persons monitored. 


That analysis started in 1951, right? 


MR. KERR: Yeah, I’m here. I just tried to 


get together some stuff. We found out when we 


did it, histograms and quartile plots that we 

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had trouble fitting anything to the external 


data. We’re talking about distributions of 


any sort. Quarterly data before the third 


quarter 1956 did not fit a lognormal or any 


other commonly used statistical distribution. 


And there were several reasons for the 


lack of fit. Prior to the third quarter of 


’56 where one the small size of the monitored 


populations, the frequent exchange of the film 


badge dosimeters, and the methods of assigning 


dose if the measured dose was less than the 


limit of detection. So that’s why we did, 


selected out that group to do our regression 


analysis. So anything back past ’56 is based 


on a regression analysis not based on the 


actual doses to the population of monitored 


workers. 


And that’s because of the problems we 


had with that early data because sometimes 


they used zeros instead of the LOD, sometimes 


they assigned as much dose as 50 to someone 


whose measurement was between the LODC. You 


get these strange distributions that are hard 


to deal with. So we went ahead and did the 


regression analysis to get us back to the 

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earlier days which is based on these 


populations that are well defined, we know who 


the workers were that were in them. 


Now the thing we did do is Bill and I 


and Janice Watkins went back and looked at 


external radiation monitoring at the Y-12 


facility during the ’48, ’49 period. That 


data is not part of the CER database. It’s 


not electronically available. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Yes, it is. 


MR. KERR: Okay, it’s electronically 


available. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: It’s not included in. 


MR. KERR: What’s the problem with that, 


Bill? It’s in a different format. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: This is that 11,000 record, 


approximately 11,000 record set of data that 


I’ve mentioned several times before. They 


were on the cards, the original cards. As a 


matter of fact I just looked at those again 


earlier this week. 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s what I was talking 


about, cards. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Yeah, I thought about that, 


Mark. That’s what you were talking about, 

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yes. And they have film badge results, open 


window shielded and also a chamber data. And 


those data are in the electronic database 


since the format, you know, there were two 


different chunks of data and the formats are 


different. They’re not attached to the main 


Y-12 database, but they are available. I know 


that they’re available on the O drive. They 


were set up there, like I say, a year or so 


ago. But they do, they are perfectly matched 


because we input them. 


MR. KERR: The thing is we went back and 


looked at these separately, and all backward 


extrapolations show that our estimates for 


’48, ’49 are extremely claimant favorable 


compared to the actual doses measured in ’48 


and ’49. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: The data’s available in TIB 


-- let’s see what it’s number -- 0047. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I guess I have not seen any 


of the actual data for ’48 and ’49. There is 


the ’50, ’51 data in the CER database, but --


MR. TANKERSLEY: We put that on the O drive 


so anyone who was interested could look at it. 


MR. KERR: Wallace made that available, like 

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I say, months and months ago. And Arjun, the 


reason why you probably haven’t seen it is, as 


I said, it is not in the same file as the ’50 


to ’88 set. And then of course we do have 


data after that. But generally speaking what 


we work with is that large 600,000 record file 


that goes from 1950 to 1988. That set of data 


I assure you is available on the O drive. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, no, I’m not disbelieving 


you, I just, I haven’t seen it and the 


oversight is surely mine. 


MR. GRIFFON: Jim, can you try to get that 


onto the AB review? You know, that section 


that we have dedicated? 


DR. NETON: Sure. 


MR. GRIFFON: Just so we don’t stumble 


around looking for it or whatever. 


MR. KERR: Yeah, that’s the part that would 


be useful. 


DR. NETON: Are you talking about the ’48, 


’49 external data? 


Bill, you know what file they’re 


talking about, right? 


MR. TANKERSLEY: I know perfectly, and by 


the way now go ahead and answer the question. 

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Are some of the folks wanting to see copies of 


the original data? 


MR. GRIFFON: Is that the database that 


file, Bill, or is that data? What is that 


file you’re talking about? 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Those are cards, Mark. 


They’re not the IBM cards. I don’t think they 


were using them in the late ‘40s. This is 


the, everybody can speak for themselves here, 


but this is the more or less square card that 


has the punches all the way around it where 


the metal rod can pull out certain cards. And 


they have the names and the data. As I said, 


we used to own the original cards, but years 


and years ago they were returned to the Record 


Center, I believe, and then they subsequently 


ended up over at the Y-12 record center. As I 


said, I literally looked at them on back 


Monday of this week, I think. We may have 


copies of them, and I know I can get copies of 


them, at least some of them. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think probably whatever you 


have posted now on the O drive is what we 


need. 


DR. NETON: Bill, if you send me the 

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location where they are on the site research 


database, I will make sure I put them in the 


AB Document Review folder. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Ten-four. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, and are we on to item 


number 4-a then. I think that is just what 


Bill’s talking about there. And I’m not sure 


that those cards that I was speaking of 


before, because he says they’re from the 


earlier time period, I don’t think they would 


be useful in looking at the CER external 


database reliability for purposes of ’50 to 


’88 or whatever, obviously. So that point, I 


sort of missed the time period on those cards. 


So I think that action item will go away, 


number 4-a. Am I right about that, everybody? 


MS. MUNN: Yes. 


MR. GRIFFON: I’m not hearing anything. All 


right, and then I’m down to 2-a-1. Just 


points of closure again, Jim, item 2, I don’t 


know. You spoke of this several times but the 


criticality, I think you said you had a write 


up on that. Did you? I don’t recall whether 


that was ever --


DR. NETON: I thought I provided it, but I 

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will, I will make sure that if it’s not on the 


O drive of the AB Document Review folder, it’s 


there. It’s a draft document that Bill --


MR. GRIFFON: SC&A, do you recall if you’ve 


seen this or I may have missed this. 


MR. FITZGERALD: I think it was a handout at 


the last meeting. 


DR. NETON: Well, I’m not sure. It would 


have been a fairly thick document, but there 


is really only one section is relevant that 


speaks to what the exposure conditions were 


prior to the criticality accident. That is, 


that the tanks had been all, they thought they 


were clean and the linings were empty and that 


sort of thing, and of course, they were wrong. 


And that addresses the issue as to why 


a number of those workers were not monitored 


when one would think if there was a 


criticality, you would have uranium there, you 


should have been monitored. And there’s about 


two or three pages, if I recall, that are 


relevant, and I may just put those pages out 


there. The rest of it is really sort of 


criticality response and evaluation of the 


doses, et cetera. I’ll do that. 

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MS. MUNN: We did see something at the last 


meeting on that. I can’t remember. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think it was a few 


pages. It may have just been an excerpt of 


the one you’re talking about. 


DR. NETON: That sounds like the document, 


but I’ll make sure it’s available on the O 


drive and people can look at it. 


MR. GRIFFON: Now I’m down to item, well, 


three and four kind of go together. I left 


them this way because it was, in the last 


matrix it was this way. But three was NIOSH 


will provide this addendum, and they did. And 


four was SC&A will review it. And I just 


edited it, number four, to say that SC&A will 


review and provide comments on these reports 


in the context of the SEC petition review. 


Because I think these reports are included, 


and so I don’t expect a separate deliverable 


on this. John, if you’re, I think this would 


all be part of your --


DR. MAURO: Yeah, that’ll make it a little 


easier for us. We can take care of it when we 


deliver our report. 


MR. GRIFFON: And number five was addressed 

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as far as the assembly worker question went? 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


MR. GRIFFON: Then 2-b-1, I’m not sure, was 


item 1 completed? 


DR. NETON: I thought it was because we did 


see comments from SC&A, but there were really, 


but the main issue that we discussed was the 


evidence or existence of very low-energy 


neutrons. At the working group meeting we 


asserted that we could not find any mechanism 


or moderator in the process areas where 


there’s very small diameter piping and very 


small quantities of uranium going through it 


to moderate the neutrons down to such a low 


energy. And I thought that SC&A had agreed 


that that was acceptable. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think the way it 


was left, this is Joe Fitzgerald. I think I 


agree with you, Jim. I think the way it was 


left was that was the, certainly, the 


assertion that certainly there was no evidence 


or examples of sources of moderation in the 


plant. And I think it was sort of inferred 


that unless we could identify such sources of 


moderation, then that’s pretty much where 

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things would stand. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun, Jim. I agree 


that we left it there, but then you puzzled me 


again because in your dose reconstructions, 


either number one or number three, you say the 


worker, John Doe, was exposed to low, medium 


and high energy neutrons. I got very confused 


by that. 


DR. NETON: Let’s strike out low. I think 


that was a carryover from the request from 


SC&A that we do that, and yes, strike that 


out. 


MR. GRIFFON: That sounds familiar because 


it was requested, and you commented on that 


before. 


DR. NETON: We commented, and then we just 


accidentally left in low. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, fine, so it was just 


kind of an oversight. 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


MR. GRIFFON: So one is completed and if 


it’s going to be considered at all, it’ll be 


considered in the petition review or in the 


sample DRs, I assume. 


NIOSH will -- number two -- NIOSH will 

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provide a newly developed model for beta 


exposure. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, the model, the write up is 


in the evaluation report for the beta 


distributions. They’re there, and in fact, 


George Kerr distributed at the last working 


group meeting a write up on betas. And we do 


have one example dose reconstruction that we 


still owe you, which would reconstruct the 


dose for beta, an unmonitored worker exposed 


to beta activity. I think even further beta 


activity that is extremity exposure. 


So you can certainly review what’s in 


the evaluation report in Appendix 1, and then 


we will have a sort of proof of principle 


example which I have on my computer. I just 


got it a little too late to make it available 


to the working group and will put that out 


there shortly. 


MR. GRIFFON: All right, and I think that’s 


it. That brings us to the sample DRs. Unless 


there’s any other questions on the matrix, I 


guess I’ll turn it over to Jim and let you 


step us through some of the examples. 


MS. MUNN: That leaves us with essentially 

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four relatively minor items on the matrix to 


be documented somewhere, right? 


MR. GRIFFON: Right, I didn’t count, Wanda, 


but a lot of things were deferred to sort of 


the review of the full evaluation report, 


right? 


MS. MUNN: Right. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and a couple small items 


just to wrap up. We have nothing hanging out 


there, no. That’s for sure. 


MS. MUNN: The big reports are. 


SAMPLE DOSE RECONSTRUCTIONS
 

MR. GRIFFON: All right, Jim. 


DR. NETON: What we have in these example 


dose reconstructions are sort of a modified 


version of what was requested. And if you 


remember SC&A put out sort of a straw man 


document that said here’s eleven potential 


dose reconstructions you might be interested 


in seeing. But they also allowed for the fact 


that some of these might be combined and some 


we might want to review and look at and 


determine the relevancy, that sort of thing. 


Where we ended up at the end of the 


day, we think that we have not eleven, but --

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let’s see, how many do we have here? About 


nine dose reconstructions that document what 


we believe to be at least proof of principle 


for being able to bound exposures and yet have 


those exposures be in a plausible range. 


They’re not coming up with doses that just 


wouldn’t make sense. And so these are 


somewhat modified from the original SC&A 


request, and I’ll try to point out why where 


it might be relevant. 


The first one had to do with trying to 


assign a neutron dose assessment to a 


hypothetical machinist operator. And I should 


point out none of these are real cases with 


the exception, I think, of number three, and 


that’s been pretty, there’s no Privacy Act 


information to my knowledge in there. This 


hypothetical machinist operator who was 


exposed to -- and scratch low to a medium 


neutrons. And the idea was that he may have 


worked in the cyclotron areas and maybe 


industrial X-ray units. 


So what was reconstructed here was the 


dose to the prostate for this individual who 


had an employment history starting in 1948 and 

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ending in 1957. We ended all of our 


evaluations at the end of the SEC class period 


just for convenience purposes because we were 


trying to focus in on the issues relevant to 


the report. 


And what you’ll see here is that the 


person was assumed to have no dosimetry data 


between 1948 and ’56, that is, no monitoring 


data whatsoever. But he was monitored in 1957 


with summary data only. That is, all we know 


is he had 100 millirem deep, 150 millirem 


shallow, and a neutron result of zero. 


Now we’re in a little bit of a dilemma 


with these type of examples because as I 


indicated at the beginning when I was 


summarizing the evaluation report, it is our 


opinion that in the cyclotron area workers 


were monitored. I mean, we have pretty good 


documentation that they were required to be 


monitored so it would be almost impossible for 


a person working in the cyclotron area to not 


have any monitoring data at all. 


That being the case though using our 


efficiency approaches, we went ahead and made 


some broad stroke assumptions. That is, we 

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assumed he was actually unmonitored and 


assigned him coworker dose based on the 


models, scaling models, that we’ve talked 


about for photons. That is, the backward 


extrapolation into the 1948 to ’56 timeframe 


and assign the person photon dose using that 


technique. 


And then his monitored dose in ’57 --


and by the way, whoever was doing these dose 


reconstructions correctly because I’m 


interpreting these, but I think I’ve got it. 


We used the monitoring data in ’57, but we 


assigned, I believe, missed dose assuming all 


that material, all that exposure was delivered 


in one badge exchange. So that increased the 


person’s exposure in a claimant favorable 


fashion. 


And then the neutron dose gets a 


little bit more difficult. Again, we find it 


almost no credible scenario where a person 


could have been working in certain areas and 


not have neutron values. I mentioned that 


after about 1950 the NTA film was in the 


workers’ badges. They made a determination to 


read them or not depending on their potential 

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for exposure. 


The most credible scenario we could 


envision that this person could have been 


exposed to was working in the storage area 


with enriched uranium that had a one-to-one 


neutron-to-photon ratio. But based on the 


imputed dose using the photon dose based on 


the back extrapolation technique, one assumes, 


one arrives at a neutron dose that could have 


been there. 


Given all that and adding it up, and I 


won’t get into some of the summaries of 


radiation types, et cetera. You can read that 


on your own. The first ended up with a total 


reconstructed photon dose of 6.9 rem and a 


neutron dose of 10.2 rem. And even under 


these assumptions which are fairly claimant 


favorable, the PC is under 22 percent. 


So that’s the first one. Are there 


any questions or ... 


 (no response) 


DR. NETON: Okay, let’s move on then? 


MR. GRIFFON: Sure, yeah. 


DR. NETON: Case number two was something 


that we didn’t do because I think that it 

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passed for us to reconstruct exposures to low-


energy neutrons, and we just again, you know, 


are of the opinion that we couldn’t come up 


with a plausible exposure scenario for that 


type of situation. 


Case number three tried to elucidate 


how we would do neutron dose assignments when 


the doses were zero, actually zero in the 


record. And if you remember, if a person was 


monitored, they were all monitored for 


neutrons, but it’s possible that zeros were 


entered in there even if the badge had not 


been read. 


Again, we have a similar situation 


where a person was unmonitored, the cancer 


reconstructed here would be the prostate, 


assumed employment start date ’50, ended in 


’57. Again, this was a cyclotron worker, no 


monitoring between 1950 and ’54, monitored for 


neutrons and photons from ’55 to ’57 with 


summary data only. 


Now, this says use worker number 51. 


That’s case 51, and that’s not a claimant 


number or anything, that’s just a sequentially 


assigned number. In Appendix A-2 they used 

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his exposure scenario to do this dose 


reconstruction. In a very analogous manner 


this early dose was reconstructed in ’50 to 


’54 using the coworker approach. Again, we 


believe that a person working in the cyclotron 


would have had his badges read, but 


nonetheless we went ahead and assigned these 


zeros as real. And I’m looking here as to how 


we -- we assumed -- I have to go back here and 


look at this narrative for a second. 


We used the coworker, this dose was 


reconstructed from ’50-’54 because the photon 


-- I’m drawing a blank. Can someone help me 


out here from the ORAU side as to what we did 


for the neutron exposures on this person? 


 (no response) 


MR. GRIFFON: You’re on your own. 


DR. NETON: I’m on my own. 


MR. KERR: Are you looking for the neutron 


exposures? 


DR. NETON: Yeah, what did we do for the 


neutron exposure in the 1950 to ’54 period? 


MR. REED: This is Steve Reed. I just 


jumped in here, and I’m trying to figure it 


out myself. I did the dose reconstruction, 

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but I did many of these, and I haven’t looked 


at this one for quite some time. 


DR. NETON: I’m trying to see what ... 


Missed dose was not assigned separately 


because the period ... 


MR. KERR: Yeah, I don’t think I assigned 


any missed dose for ’50 to ’54 because there 


were no --


DR. NETON: What neutron dose was assigned 


in ’50 to ’54? That’s what I’m trying to 


figure out here. 


MR. KERR: Well, from ’50 to ’54 the neutron 


dose was based on the model photon doses 


because that’s, we used coworker data for 


those years. 


DR. NETON: Correct, but what ratio did we 


use here for neutron to photon? I don’t see 


that. 


MR. KERR: A one-to-one ratio which isn’t 


evident in this dose reconstruction. 


DR. NETON: Right, that’s why I was drawing 


a blank. I didn’t see that in here. 


MR. KERR: We used the 9212 Building 


assumption which is the one-to-one. 


DR. NETON: Okay, that’s the same assumption 

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that what was used in the previous dose 


reconstruction. The photon dose was 


reconstructed, and then the neutron dose was 


used based on the enriched uranium storage 


area ratios and assigned for ’50 to ’54. And 


then when one gets to the period where he was 


monitored for neutrons and photons from ’55 to 


’57, it was essentially a missed dose 


calculation assuming, I think, that all of the 


results, all of the dose was received in one 


badge exchange. And knowing the badge 


exchange frequency in that period, that this 


dose was added for each of the missing, 


potential missing reads. And that ended up 


assigning a 20.5 rem total dose. 


By the way, I don’t take credit for 


the fact that we can read these figures, but 


in dose reconstructions we get down to the 


millirem because oftentimes claimants like to 


see it down to the millirem level. But the 


missed photon dose was three-and-a-half. The 


photon dose as reconstructed was 5.8, neutron 


dose was 7.5, and missed neutron dose was 3.7. 


Given the total deep dose was 20.5 rem, the PC 


for this case ended up being about 18.2 

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percent. 


DR. MAURO: Excuse me, Jim. This is John. 


Given that we’re going to be in an expedited 


process to be using this material to sort of 


track closure on the issues, would it be 


acceptable to the working group for us to be 


able to interact directly with the authors of 


these example dose reconstructions? 


MS. MUNN: I think it’s desirable. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I don’t have a problem 


with that. I think that’s appropriate, yeah. 


DR. MAURO: That would be great. That being 


the case if the names of each of the authors 


or the principle authors could be provided, we 


could get this going aggressively. 


DR. NETON: I might want to be a little 


careful there, John. The authors of dose 


reconstructions are fine. I think we could 


interact, but it would be good if we all could 


have, I don’t know how to put this, but 


support people working with them because to be 


fair to the dose reconstructors. You know, 


they’re doing these based on emerging issues 


that occur at these working group meetings. 


And to the extent they can, they’re using very 

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standard principles and procedures. But in 


some cases, and I’ll point to the extremity 


dose issue, we’ve had to work very closely 


with them. 


MR. GRIFFON: I guess from the worker group 


standpoint I think it’s appropriate for you to 


directly work through Jim on this. How you 


get the author on the line, that’s up to, you 


know, you guys can work that out, but it can 


be an informal interaction I guess is what, 


John, what mainly what you’re looking for, 


right? 


DR. MAURO: Exactly, the reason is that it’s 


been our experience very often a large portion 


of our time when we look at cases is just 


trying to figure out, get the path that was 


followed, the assumptions, because sometimes 


all of the assumptions are not there and it 


takes a little digging. If we could just go 


directly to the source that could expedite 


things. 


DR. NETON: I think we could certainly set 


that up, but I guess if you’d work that 


through me that would he helpful. I guess I’d 


just like to be in the loop and in the know as 

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to what’s transpiring. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: John, this is Arjun. You 


know the way Jim and I, I think if I might 


speak for us, Jim, worked pretty efficiently 


before on some of this where we had e-mail 


interchanges on these kind of detailed 


technical questions and we just published the 


e-mail so everybody was in the know about what 


happened. And still I did not feel 


constrained in any way in our communication. 


Did you, Jim? 


DR. NETON: No, I think that worked fine. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I think it went very easily 


and was also very transparent so maybe we 


could just in this case we could have the 


names then Jim and that principle author would 


be part of the e-mail exchange which is 


documented and get the questions answered. 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s fine, Arjun, but I 


don’t want to constrain you in any way. If 


you need to pick up the phone and say I’m 


looking at this right now. I’ve got this page 


open and, you know. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I agree, but time is 


very, very short so I think John is right. We 

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have, even though it seemed like a crunch 


then, I think we have much more time. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I think, Arjun, I like 


your proposal, and what might work best if you 


just sent it on to me, and I’ll make sure that 


the right people are touched on the ORAU side. 


Because then you certainly would have the dose 


reconstructor involved, but like I said, there 


are other folks who are working closely with 


the dose reconstructors to make sure we’re 


representing the current state of our 


evolution of this process. And that’s totally 


acceptable to us that we work that way. And 


if it gets to the point where an e-mail 


exchange gets fairly cumbersome and we’re 


writing pages, then we could facilitate some 


kind of a phone call with minutes as we’ve 


done in the past. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that was my point. 


MS. MUNN: The crunches do seem to get 


crunchier as time goes on, don’t they? 


DR. NETON: Yes, they do. 


Okay, any more comments or should I 


move on? 


 (no response) 

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DR. NETON: The case number four we have in 


the works, and I need to provide that to you, 


that is the extremity dose assignment for 


betas that applies to that coworker model that 


George Kerr developed. And we’ll get you that 


as soon as possible. 


Case number five puts us in the realm 


of uranium dose assessments, and this would be 


a hypothetical machinist. I think these were 


hypothetical. But the example machinist 


operator exposed to enriched uranium, if this 


person worked around enriched uranium in say 


Building 9212, 9988, again, we’re not 


accounting for any thorium here at all because 


we feel we’re only reconstructing doses that 


we feel that we can. This dose was 


reconstructed to the --


MR. GRIFFON: Just one more thing on the 


thorium. I know we’ve beat this around 


awhile, but the only thing that I guess I get 


concerned about because I, you know, in 


reading this in preparation for the phone call 


that’s the one obvious thing that stuck out is 


how are you going to narrow that population. 


And I’m concerned now that by defining it the 

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way we are, I’m worried, and I guess we have 


to wait for DOL’s response to this, but I’m 


worried that we’re defining a class that can’t 


be administered. That DOL will not have 


enough information to make a determination of 


who was or was not thorium workers, and we’re 


sort of setting up a failed process here. 


That’s, this is a little aside here, 


but I guess again we best, Lew’s going to 


follow up with DOL and it may be more of a 


policy-type question. But I mean, just to get 


that into the record. I mean I think we --


DR. NETON: I don’t disagree with you. I 


mean we need to hear Labor’s input on this. 


DR. WADE: I think Mike made the point very 


clear before, and it’s on the record, and 


we’ll try and work through it. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


MS. MUNN: One’s first thought reading this 


evaluation is it’s going to turn out to be an 


awful lot of people, a high percentage, I 


think. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and I hate to put an 


unresolvable problem in the hands of DOL. 


That’s the other question. 

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DR. NETON: Right, this is going to be sort 


of a consistent issue I think though because 


we, just to claim that we’re going to add a 


class or a bunch of workers, we’re going to 


have to almost acknowledge up front we know 


almost nothing about them other than there was 


a large amount, enough material there to 


expose them and there were. It seems like if 


we knew a lot more we would probably be able 


to do something. 


MR. GRIFFON: And on the flip side, if we 


get into this situation where DOL requires 


proof from the individual that they worked in 


that building and worked with thorium, I don’t 


know how an individual provides that either. 


I guess I get worried. I guess Mike stated it 


very well. We’re going to follow up --


MR. GIBSON: This is Mike. I’m sorry, I 


didn’t mean to cut you off, Mark. 


The lack of records it seems, I know 


SEC kind of turns around the burden of proof 


back on the government, but the lack of 


records also, you know, to the claimant is 


their defense. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right, then to prove that you 

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were quote/unquote a thorium worker, I mean, 


it’s one thing to prove that you worked at 


Paducah for 250 days, but it’s another thing 


to prove that you were a thorium worker in 


9212, especially if you’re, it’s a survivor 


claim and they would have no knowledge of 


exactly what they were doing in those 


buildings. So it might --


DR. WADE: We understand. I mean just for 


the record, if Larry’s on the phone, prior to 


releasing the evaluation report we took the 


proposed class definition to DOL. So we had 


discussion with the belief that they felt they 


could administer this, but we need to bring 


them to you to talk about it. 


MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, that is correct, Lew, as 


part of the process of making sure that we can 


administer with DOL developing cases that fit 


into the class, they understand the definition 


that we’re proposing and recommending. And 


just for clarity’s sake and for the record 


there, in our discussions with DOL there was 


no indication that there was a requirement 


that a worker or burden be placed on a worker 


to indicate or prove that they were working 

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with thorium. The definition of the class 


specifies that thorium exposure existed in 


those buildings; and therefore, as I 


understand DOL’s policy and procedures, they 


would just need to put people in those 


buildings. 


MR. GRIFFON: How we generally do this. I 


mean, maybe not even specifically for this 


petition, but at least tell us what they can 


about their policies and procedures with 


regard to placing the -- I guess I don’t want 


to be in a position of recommending something 


that can’t be administered. 


DR. WADE: It could well be the Board, based 


upon what it hears from DOL, might temper its 


judgment on the evaluation report. And that’s 


quite reasonable. 


MR. GRIFFON: I’m sorry to sidetrack on that 


issue again. I just --


DR. WADE: Now, well as I said in this 


program, and I’m relatively new to it, I mean, 


there’s always some new vexing issue. But if 


we get the right people in front of the Board, 


and the Board hears what they have to say, and 


then I trust the Board to make the appropriate 

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judgment. 


MS. MUNN: It is a vexing issue. It’s 


unfortunate that we have absolutely no thorium 


data, but then given the period that we’re 


looking at and the reality of life at that 


time, it’s not really astonishing. It’s just 


unfortunate. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, but as far as reviewing 


this sample DR, I think what we’re asking SC&A 


to do is consider this as a uranium case and 


not look at the potential thorium exposures at 


all. 


MS. MUNN: That’s what I heard. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, Jim, I’m sorry to cut in 


there. 


DR. NETON: Okay, so this is a machinist 


operator working in an enriched uranium area 


who developed colon cancer hypothetically and 


his employment period was from ’48 to 1950. 


This, I think, was SC&A’s attempt to say well, 


what are you doing in that era when you have 


no bioassay data. I think the original one 


talked about only fluorometric data. In fact, 


we don’t even acknowledge we have (inaudible). 


It might have been a couple samples, but we’re 

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really not using those at all in the early 


time period. 


So this is a case where he was 


monitored for, he didn’t have any urinalysis 


data except he had one result apparently we 


decided in 1950 in this case. So what we did 


was we assumed, we used a coworker model that 


went back into the early period, 1948 through 


1950 to estimate this person’s dose. And it 


turned out that using that model, one comes up 


with a fairly substantial intake of like 


three-and-a-half microcuries, somewhere 


thereabout. It’s just a large intake 


projected for that time period. 


Type-S was used again as our normal 


policy was to go through and take the 


solubility class that is the most claimant 


favorable if we don’t know what the exposure 


was to. And we used Type-S, 100 percent 


Uranium-234 was used as normal in these cases 


because that tends to maximize the dose 


because it’s got the highest alpha energy. 


And doing that and modeling one 


positive sample in there as well, sort of 


superimposing one acute intake on top of this 

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chronic exposure scenario, we ended up with a 


PC of 5.6 percent for the colon which is I 


think you’re going to see is fairly typical 


for non-metabolic organs that are exposed to 


uranium. 


I mean, if the organs are non-


metabolic, I mean, the organ does not 


concentrate the uranium to any appreciable 


extent. It’s certainly in the bloodstream and 


it passes through those organs, but if there’s 


no concentration mechanism, it takes fairly 


substantial intakes to get PCs that are 


anywhere above single digits. 


DR. MAURO: Jim, this is John. For the one 


measured data point, was that expressed in dpm 


or micrograms or milligrams per liter? 


DR. NETON: That was a dpm value which is 


interesting. I’m not sure why we would have a 


dpm per day in June 1st, 1950, although. Yeah, 


that’s an interesting -- well, it was a made 


up case so, you know, the example stands as 


it’s written even if we, we took out the made 


up 230 dpm value, one would get the same idea. 


I’m not sure exactly why we threw in this 


acute intake, this value, in 1950. We might 

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want to re-think that and pull that out and 


make it more realistic. I think the intent 


here is to show that we would use real data if 


we had it, and so it was thrown into this as 


an example, but the reality is that we don’t 


have any data to hang our hat on in that time 


period. 


MR. GRIFFON: Is that why, I highlighted 


here with the exception of one, and therefore, 


so you have one value above the detection 


limit? 


DR. NETON: Right. 


MR. GRIFFON: And that’s why you, I wondered 


why --


DR. NETON: I think it was just to show that 


we --


MR. GRIFFON: To show that you might have 


one or two data points. 


DR. NETON: Right, and this would apply to 


later years where we would have one or two 


data points. I think I’ve got an example 


coming up that does that where we would 


certainly use all valid, what we consider to 


be valid bioassay results above the detection 


limits. But we would always have that 

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superimposed on top of samples are at the mda 


or below, we would assume that the person was 


at half of the mda in their exposure scenario. 


DR. MAURO: Jim, if you were to hypothesize 


that the one reading that you had was a 


milligram for 24 hours per liter, I remember 


coming across recently as part of Task Three, 


that you do now have a procedure to convert 


milligrams to dpm as a function of enrichment 


level. Would I be correct in assuming if, in 


fact, you hypothesized that you actually had a 


milligram number for that 1950 value, you 


would use that protocol? 


DR. NETON: We could certainly calculate how 


many, how much activity, if we knew the 


enrichment, we could calculate how much 


activity that map of uranium was, corresponded 


to. 


DR. MAURO: Is it reasonable to assume you 


would know that enrichment? 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s a different question 


there. 


DR. NETON: It’s a different question. I 


think we would know a bracketing enrichment. 


DR. MAURO: You see where I’m going. 

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DR. NETON: Yeah, but I think that the 


database itself, the CER database, all the 


data we have are in dpm. Is that not right? 


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


MR. GRIFFON: That is, yeah, that’s right. 


DR. NETON: I’m sure that the coworker model 


is all in dpm so they were, if they were not 


in activities they were converted somehow. 


They must have been converted using that 


equation. I mean --


MR. GRIFFON: Don’t say somehow, Jim. 


DR. NETON: Well, I’m sorry. Right, so the 


coworker data as Liz is reminding me were 


already in dpm. 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s why you have dpm 


values. 


DR. NETON: Right. So we have all dpm so 


that takes the conversion out of the picture. 


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


DR. NETON: Now we would not have a 


microgram value to use if there was coworker 


data. Now if we had a mass data that was 


reported in a claimant’s file, it’s possible 


we could have microgram values in a claimant’s 


record. 

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MS. BRACKETT: Doesn’t their data come from 


the same place as the CER? 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


MS. BRACKETT: There’s nothing else besides 


that I thought. 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, there’s Delta view data, 


but I don’t --


DR. NETON: Delta view --


MS. BRACKETT: Yes, in peoples’ files. 


DR. NETON: The Delta view, yes. And the 


way it’s portrayed in our documents, and we 


believe this to be the case, is that if a mass 


measurement was made, it was only made for 


people who were working with unenriched 


uranium. If an alpha measurement was made, it 


was for people who were working with 


potentially enriched material. That’s a 


distinction that’s been made pretty much 


throughout the history of this program as far 


as I can tell. 


MR. GRIFFON: Even see it in the early 


health physics reports that supports that 


because they break it out in graphs for the 


enriched sources that the department 


(unintelligible). 

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DR. NETON: So I guess the answer, John, to 


your question is if we did have a value that 


we received was in milligrams, we would assume 


that it was unenriched uranium. 


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


DR. NETON: But that said, in the CER 


database all the values have been converted to 


dpm even though they may have been mass 


measurements at one point. 


Number six, an example dose 


reconstruction is an attempt to illustrate how 


we would handle, essentially, it’s a similar 


reconstruction using coworker data except the 


added twist that there is some recycled 


uranium exposure in this example. In 


addition, SC&A was interested in determining 


how we would handle a person exposed to a 


plethora of different solubility types, the 


UNH, UF-6, UO-2-F, to pretty much any type of 


uranium you could have. And we would 


reconstruct these for cancers of the colon, 


bone and kidney. 


The person here started in 1950, ended 


their employment in 1953, and this again would 


be an efficiency approach where the person was 

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monitored through urinalysis, but all the 


results were below the detection limit. So we 


would use the detection limit to model his 


exposure assuming a half a value of the 


detection limit. And then this is another 


example where you had one result assumed to 


have a positive value on June 15th, 1952, that 


exceeded the detection limit. 


Using these analyses we looked at 


solubility Types F, M and S. It turned out 


for all of these, all of the three cancer dose 


reconstructions that were done, Type-S ended 


up being the most claimant favorable and was 


applied to both the missed and measured doses. 


All these, of course, were modeled 


using IMBA. I’m not going through some of the 


details. In addition, it is documented that 


in ’53 recycled uranium was present at the 


site. Therefore, radionuclides of neptunium, 


thorium, technetium and plutonium were also 


added using Table 5.8 of the Technical Basis 


Document, and they were scaled to the uranium 


intake. And you can see here the dpm per day 


intakes for the various radionuclides that 


were assumed. 

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Doing all this --


MR. RICH: Jim, this is very claimant 


favorable primarily because recycled uranium 


arrived in Y-12 in June of ’53, so it was, 


they assumed --


DR. NETON: They assumed the exposure 


started in the beginning. 


MR. RICH: Fifty, which, you know, it’s 


very, very claimant favorable. 


DR. NETON: Okay, thanks. 


And one interesting thing to know is 


that the solubility type for some of the 


recycled uranium is different than S or 


neptunium, and Technetium-M ended up being the 


more claimant favorable radionuclide. All 


that said, we ended up with PCs of 6.7 percent 


for the colon, 42.8 for bone and 16.6 percent 


for the kidney. 


One organ that wasn’t on here, and I 


think I’ve got an example now that will add in 


lung cancer. It’s pretty clear for a case 


like this that the lung cancer PC is going to 


be high, and I don’t have it in front of me, 


but I think it ended up somewhere in the 80 


percent range. As you can imagine for Type-S 

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inhalations of this magnitude, lung cancer is 


going to be compensable. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Jim, this is Joe Irana (ph) 


with ORAU. I just noticed that the recycled 


uranium was not applied until 1953. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I was going to say I saw 


the same thing. 


DR. NETON: It was in ’53, but I think what 


Bryce was saying was it didn’t arrive until 


the middle of ’53, and we assumed it was for 


the whole year. And that’s fine. In this 


particular case the PCs were less than 50, so 


if we knew that, we should go back and make it 


more realistic because we don’t want, you 


know, we’re sensitive to be making these 


things much higher than they need to be 


because it gives claimants a false sense of 


what the PC may really have been. 


MS. MUNN: Absolutely. If it didn’t arrive 


until mid-June then I think --


DR. MAURO: -- and doing, I guess, a proof 


of principle. The fact that you would make 


that assumption for this purpose is really not 


a critical issue. 


DR. NETON: Right, yeah, I agree. This 

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isn’t going out, this is not going in 


anybody’s record or anything. It probably 


doesn’t make a lot of difference at the end of 


the day either. 


Okay, that was example six. Number 


seven I’m not going to go over because we 


really didn’t do a dose reconstruction. That 


was a request to indicate how we would handle 


the Paducah Feed Plant ash which has a much 


higher ratios of plutonium and other 


transuranics than what the TBD indicates. And 


you could read that analysis and see where you 


land on your opinion of what we’re saying 


there. 


Case number eight again is another 


dose reconstruction for colon, bone and liver, 


and this one I guess is really not that 


different than the other ones other than that 


recycled material was present, was 


reconstructed ’53 through ’57. I’m not sure 


how this is different than the other one. So 


it’s essentially the same type of example, 


it’s just more recycled uranium later on. 


It assumed that this person was not 


monitored at all for internal dose. I guess 

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that’s the key difference here is this was 


reconstructed using the coworker model. So 


you have a coworker model to reconstruct 


internal dose, and then marry that to a 


scaling factor for recycled uranium. And 


given that the PCs were 7.4 for colon, 41 for 


bone and 22.6 for liver. 


I don’t have the lung cancer dose 


reconstruction, but I assume as well that this 


one would be well over 50 percent based on 


these scenarios. The solubility classes that 


were used are, I’m sure, very similar. It was 


Type-S for the individual organs even though 


Type-M was more likely present in the early 


years at Y-12. 


That’s sort of a thumbnail sketch of 


what we’ve put out there. We do acknowledge 


that we have three dose reconstructions that 


would be necessary to flesh out the entire 


picture. And that would be the exotic 


radionuclides at the cyclotron. At least my 


intent there is to do something like a 


Gallium-57 intake assessment, you know, where 


at cyclotron the Gallium-67 --


What did I say? Fifty-seven, sorry. 

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It’s getting late in the day. 


Where a target had ruptured, and we 


actually have some pretty good data from one 


of the incident reports to use there. And 


then the final one would be, well, the final 


one would be the plutonium-type dose 


reconstructions for the other radionuclides 


that would be based on the data that we have 


in Delta view. So there would be two more 


there, and then also the additional one that I 


talked about with the external extremity 


exposure to betas, case number four. 


Well, that’s it. 


MS. MUNN: Great. 


MR. GRIFFON: And just you mentioned 


polonium earlier on. 


DR. NETON: Right, we need to take a look at 


polonium. 


MR. GRIFFON: Whether that’s -- I don’t even 


know the quantities or how often those runs 


took place. 


DR. NETON: Polonium stopped being produced 


fairly early on. It was the first thing that 


was run through the cyclotron, and I think 


polonium production 1951 started, and I think 

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it only ran through like ’52. And there was 


an incident of polonium that was, I think, 


pretty well documented. 


MS. BRACKETT: Polonium-208. 


DR. NETON: Polonium-208, that’s right. And 


I did check. I think Joyce Lipsztein asked 


awhile ago if we had Polonium-208, and I think 


I checked then, but it’s in there. It’s not 


your garden-variety polonium, but I guess it’s 


no big deal to add in the half-life and the 


specific effective energies in there for 


whatever reason. So we can look at the 


polonium and the plutonium possibly. 


MR. GRIFFON: Any other comments on the 


cases? 


MR. PRESLEY: Mark, this is Bob Presley. 


It’s all right if I listen? 


DR. WADE: Yes, it’s fine. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think we’re close to 


conclusion actually. 


DR. WADE: But it’s perfectly acceptable, 


Robert, for you to listen. You know, it’s a 


public call so feel free to listen. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and I think that’s the 


way Lew laid out the ground rules earlier on 

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so that’s fine. 


Any other questions on the cases? I 


think we all, I think we need time to digest 


these cases obviously, but I think that was a 


good overview of what the cases are. I don’t 


see any gaps in the types of cases we would be 


looking for although I think you’ve covered 


pretty much --


DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark. 


MR. GRIFFON: -- the ones we could think of 


during this process. Yeah. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. I had a 


question on the Polonium-208. I understand 


the internal dose adjustments in terms of the 


alpha energies and so on. It also has a sort 


of a one percent decay in the Bismuth-208 


which has a pretty (unintelligible) gamma 


component. It doesn’t say here in what I have 


in summary how frequent these gammas, what 


percentage have 2.6 gamma, and very high 


energy beta also, .9. 


DR. NETON: I’m sorry, Arjun, I’m having a 


little trouble hearing you. 


MR. GRIFFON: You’re fading off a little 


there. 

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160 

DR. MAKHIJANI: I’m sorry. There’s a small 


minority of Polonium-208 disintegrations, at 


least in my, I have a little summary table 


here that shows a Bismuth-208, but probably it 


wouldn’t build up very much. It has a very 


low half-life. I may not amount to anything 


but it maybe worth a footnote that there is 


this thing and it doesn’t amount to anything. 


I don’t think it would be significant, it’s 


just --


DR. NETON: Well, I didn’t mean to imply 


that IMBA would not necessarily have accounted 


for that. I was just sort of speaking off the 


top of my head that normally the change of 


radionuclide, if it doesn’t have any sort of 


other daughters, it’s easy to put in this 


specific effect. 


MS. BRACKETT: They do, they have to do 


annual doses and they split up energy. So it 


wouldn’t just be taking Polonium-210 and the 


half-life. 


DR. NETON: So I’m sure, we could take a 


look at that and verify that we do or do not 


handle the Bismuth-208 decay mode. And if 


it’s not, figure out why and if it’s a problem 

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if it is in there, fine. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: It most likely will not be 


but just as a check. 


DR. NETON: If it’s a minor decay process 


and it has a much longer half-life than 


Polonium-208, my gut feeling is that it’s not 


really going to be a dosimetric issue. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: And I agree. 


MS. MUNN: So Mark, what are we expecting in 

Denver? 

CONCLUSIONS 

DR. WADE: Well, this is Lew. I’ve kept a 

list of things that I think, you know, 


generically we’ve agreed to. Maybe I could 


just run that list and then you guys could 


refine it. 


MS. MUNN: That’d be great. 


MR. GRIFFON: That’d be great. 


DR. WADE: My first item is I think there’s 


the expectation or the hope that John Mauro 


will notify the working group really quite 


quickly when the working group could expect to 


see the SC&A report that would look at their 


review of the sample DRs. And John, you were 


going to go back to your place and think about 

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162 

that and give the working group some sense of 


what they might be able to expect and when. 


DR. MAURO: That’s correct. 


DR. WADE: And we appreciate that. 


I, Lew Wade, am going to seek someone 


with the wisdom of Solomon to come and explain 


to the Board what happens if we do, indeed, 


have a, if you do, indeed, pass on and an SEC 


is approved that looks at workers who should 


have been or were monitored for thorium, for 


example. How would those judgments be made? 


How would that decision actually be 


implemented by DOL? And hopefully, we’ll have 


that presentation and discussion at the next 


meeting. 


There are a number of issues where 


NIOSH needs to get final clarifications or 


some issues to the working group. And I would 


ask Jim that at some point in time that you 


would prepare an e-mail to the working group 


that would contain that information. Maybe 


you’re sharing it as you go, but at some 


point, maybe at the halfway point between here 


and the start of the next Board meeting, you 


would provide information to the Board of the 

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163 

type you promised that you would be 


considering for them to consider. 


DR. NETON: Lew, I just want to make sure 


I’m clear. You’re talking about what we 


agreed to look into as far as the resolution 


matrix as well as the --


DR. WADE: Right, there were a number of 


issues where it was open that you were going 


to provide some further clarification if 


possible to the working group. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right, I’ve actually edited 


the matrix I can probably turn this around by 


tomorrow even and --


DR. NETON: Mark, that’d be excellent. I 


just want to make sure we’re all in agreement 


on what --


MR. GRIFFON: But there’s just a few items, 


and I think several of them you may have 


already completed. It’s a matter of just 


making sure we all know where they are. 


DR. WADE: But I would ask that we pick a 


maybe -- this is, what’s today’s date? 


MR. GIBSON: It’s Tuesday, the 11th . 


DR. WADE: The 11th, and the working started 


on the 25th, so the halfway point between those 

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two would be the 17th . What day of the week is 


the 17th? It would be --


MS. MUNN: It’s Monday. 


DR. WADE: Monday, so maybe you could aim, 


Jim, for a communication by the 17th? 


DR. NETON: That would be next Monday. 


DR. WADE: Again, because we have to give 


the working group an opportunity to digest 


this so at least set that as a planning mark 


if at all possible. 


And then there needs to be a procedure 


worked out where SC&A can have meaningful 


interactions with dose reconstructors. But 


the way we’ve left that is that SC&A as it has 


that need will approach fulfilling that need 


by contacting Jim. And we have a lot of good 


examples of how we can do this. 


And, you know, I think we all trust 


the good offices of both parties to see that 


that happens. It will be important for SC&A 


in the conduct of its review to be able to ask 


some questions in near real time. I think we 


all want to work to see that that happens. 


So that was my list of sort of big 


items that, generic items not technical items, 

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and Mark and Wanda and Mike, you can add to 


that as you see fit. 


MR. GIBSON: Lew, if I could, on your item 


with having DOL brief us about the thorium 


issue, I would like to expand that to all 


isotopes, how they, you know, whether there’s 


data, lack of data, how the data’s 


interchanged. It’s exposure to any isotope 


not, in this case particularly it may be 


thorium, but complex-wide it’s just how any 


isotope --


DR. WADE: I understand. I will --


MR. GIBSON: -- or generally how they make 


those judgments. 


DR. WADE: Well again, all I can do is seek 


to provide that to you, but I’ll work hard. 


But thank you. That was a very important 


discussion that you led us in, Mike. 


MR. GRIFFON: And I think you, you know, the 


matrix items are, there’s no need to go 


through those. I just, I’ll turn the matrix 


around in a day or maybe, well, I should get 


it out by tomorrow. And, Jim, I’ll make sure, 


maybe even highlight the remaining few that 


need closure and we can go from there. 

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MS. MUNN: Mark, my concern still hanging on 


the time issue is how we as a working group 


are going to have an opportunity perhaps in 


the morning before the meeting begins to meet 


briefly. Are we not intending to bring 


recommendation or a presentation to the Board? 


MR. GRIFFON: I’m not sure. What is the 


schedule, Lew, for the 25th? Is it starting at 


one p.m.? 


DR. WADE: Well, we’re going to start with 


subcommittee in the morning, so we could make 


part of the morning available to the working 


group. 


MS. MUNN: I was just really concerned that 


we be prepared to present what, if I were not 


on this working group and on the Board, I 


would be expecting a recommendation from us. 


And I’m not at all sure that we have --


MR. GRIFFON: And I’m not, I mean, we’re 


going to be tight on time because it depends 


on when John can turn a report around, but I’m 


guessing that it’ll be up against the time 


limit. 


MS. MUNN: Yes, I suspect so, too, and my 


concern is that we have at least enough of a 

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167 

presentation available for them to let them 


know what issues were addressed by the matrix. 


DR. WADE: We could hold open the 


possibility of a call like this any time 


between now and the start of the Board meeting 


on the 25th . We could schedule time on the 


evening of the 24th . 


MS. MUNN: I think that would be wise for us 


to do some such thing. I’m not sure exactly 


what’s the best date for that, but it seems to 


me -- do you have that feeling? Am I the only 


one that’s concerned about this? Mark? Mike? 


What? 


MR. GIBSON: Not at all. 


MR. GRIFFON: No, you’re not the only one. 


MS. MUNN: I just want to make sure that 


when we get to the time certain we’re not 


going to be in a position of saying, well, the 


working group got through most of this except 


that we still need this from this person and 


this from that person. 


DR. WADE: Well, what I’ll do tomorrow is 


I’ll have LaShawn to query the three members 


of the working group, Mike, Mark and Wanda as 


to time available for a conference call, say 

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starting from the 17th all the way up through 


the 24th . And then once you’re in receipt of 


John Mauro’s communication, then I’ll be in 


touch with Mark and we can decide when we want 


to schedule such an interaction. 


DR. MAURO: Lew, for many of us we’ll be 


traveling on the 24th, so the meeting if we are 


going to have a conference call to see where 


we are, probably would have to on, you know, 


up to the 21st . I believe I’ll be flying most 


of the day on the 24th . 


DR. WADE: Well, we’ll put out a feeler 


tomorrow to see, so we’ll plan ahead a little 


bit, but we’ll hold open the possibility of 


the working group getting together to look at 


the recent information and try and consolidate 


a recommendation to the Board. 


MS. MUNN: I think that’s wise. 


MR. GRIFFON: Timing is critical. The other 


thing hanging out there is that we still, you 


know, we’ll try and get some information from 


DOL, but that’s not going to happen until the 


Board meeting. That might also --


DR. WADE: Right, but then I think the whole 


Board needs to hear that. I mean, there’s no 

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processing you’ll need to do on there. 


MS. MUNN: It’s our job. Bob, you said 


something? 


MR. PRESLEY: Am I still not part of the 


working group or something that I’m not privy 


to? 


DR. WADE: No, you’re part of the working 


group although I just have to determine 


whether I can do this call as a public meeting 


or not based upon my ability to do Federal 


Register material. So if we can do it as a 


public meeting then you would be privy to the 


discussion, Bob, but I have to work those 


details out. 


MR. PRESLEY: Okay. 


MS. MUNN: Well, just look for the e-mail. 


MR. GRIFFON: And John, you’ll let us all 


know within a few days anyway, right, what --


DR. MAURO: Well, the next step right now is 


I’ve got to caucus with the crew and get our 


bearings and get back to you very quickly. My 


guess is within a day or two we should be able 


to give you a date for when we will be able to 


provide you with our findings regarding the 


various cases. 

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Jim, as soon as you can get us the 


other cases the better. 


DR. NETON: Will do. 


DR. MAURO: We certainly have plenty to do 


to start right now with the cases you already 


provided us. 


MS. MUNN: Jim, if it’s not too inconvenient 


for you, if you have them in electronic form, 


if you’d send them to the members of the 


working group here as well as putting them on 


the O drive because some of us are still a 


year behind for where we ought to be. 


DR. NETON: That’s fine. I can do that. I 


may have to break them up. There’s --


MR. GRIFFON: There’s a lot of pieces. 


DR. NETON: -- a lot of pieces of 


spreadsheets that might be too big. 


MS. MUNN: Well, not to worry. 


DR. NETON: I will do it. 


MS. MUNN: Appreciate it. 


DR. NETON: Mark, could I ask you a favor? 


When you do the resolution matrix, could you 


somehow like highlight the ones that stand out 


in your mind so that --


MR. GRIFFON: I think I will put them in 

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yellow highlight. 


DR. NETON: Yellow or something so that, 


because that would just be more obvious. 


Sometimes --


MR. GRIFFON: Right, they’re buried in the 


paragraph. I will do that. 


DR. MAURO: If I could make just a brief 


announcement for the SC&A people on the line. 


After we finish up, could we have a conference 


call at five o’clock? Could you call on our 


standard number? Joe, are you still on? 


MR. GRIFFON: Have they all hung up? 


DR. MAURO: I’ll take care of it. Don’t 


worry about it. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Bill’s still here. I can 


call in at five. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, I think we’re all set. 


Anything else from any work group members or 


anyone else, Jim or Lew, any closing comments? 


DR. NETON: No, I’m fine. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think we’re good until 


tomorrow morning then for ten a.m. I think on 


Rocky, right? 


DR. WADE: Yes. 


MS. MUNN: Yes. 

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DR. WADE: Thank you for a long and 


productive day. 


MS. MUNN: We will see you tomorrow morning 


at seven o’clock my time. 


DR. MAURO: I think that’s right, ten 


o’clock eastern? 


MS. MUNN: Ten o’clock eastern. 


(Whereupon, the working group teleconference 


concluded at 4:40 p.m.) 

______________________________ 

173 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of April 11, 


2006; and it is a true and accurate transcript 


of the testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


4th day of July, 2006. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102